For most people, this is not a hard word to love. Everybody loves sex, except for nuns, virgins, Mormons, and guys with very very small penises. But I love the word itself, not just its meaning. I love it because you take this complicated act, this act that dominates so much of our thinking, an [...]
Words I Love
Nouns —
Category Archives: Nouns
Onion
This is an easy one. I love the word “onion” because the O looks like an onion. Actually, there are two onions in the word onion.
Not only is this the greatest word to describe this vegetable, it’s also the best word for it in the WORLD.
Spanish: cebolla
German: zwiebel
Swahili: kitunguu
Chinese: yang cong (pinyin)
Icelandic: laukur
Russian: some horrible-sounding [...]
Barf
We have plenty of words for regurgitation in English:
Throw up
Vomit
Puke
Upchuck
Hurl
Spew
Blow chunks
Cough up
Heave
Spit up
And for such a wonderfully repugnant activity, it’s great to have so many words at our disposal. But “barf” is the king. Besides representing both the action and the product of regurgitation (a quality shared with throw up, vomit, and puke) it is [...]
Agency
The OED has the definition of “agency” I’m interested in listed first:
The faculty of an agent or of acting; active working or operation; action, activity.
In typical OED style, I can’t fucking understand that. God bless you, Random House (def. 10):
a means of exerting power or influence; instrumentality
I did not know this definition of “agency” until [...]
Menses
For stupid men and women who are afraid of their own vaginas, “menses” is the medical term used to describe the vaginal discharge from menstruation (answers.com calls it “blood and cellular debris” while dictionary.com calls it “blood and mucosal tissue”, but it’s also medically correct to just call it “pussy goo”). And if you think [...]