Category Archives: Words

Random words that I like or dislike.

Words I Hate #2

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Posted by Craig on January 31, 2010 – 9:20 am
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Words I hate #1: http://craigsplace.info/2009/07/words-i-hate-168/

Fellow

as in “Have you met that fellow over there?”

It sounds wierd! Sorry, but I can’t help it. I think people that say fellow sound like they’re trying to be posh, but they just sound silly. It reminds me of Humphrey B. Bear. In fact, the only time fellow sounds normal is when used in the phrase “What a funny old fellow is XXX”. Extra points if the funny old fellow is named Humphrey. In any other context, it’s wierd.

Twit

as in “Did you read the twit from @thatperson?”

I use twitter all the time. and originally a single twitter post was called a tweet. But lately people have been calling them twits. This is not right. A twit is an idiot. A twit is what you sound like when you call a twitter message a twit. Please people, think about it. The word twitter comes from the sound a bird makes, and the singular form of that is tweet. Use the word properly!

Word of the Moment: Perplexing

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Posted by Craig on October 4, 2009 – 12:45 pm
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My new Word of the Moment is PERPLEXING. It came to me as I was writing my novel.

“Seeing herself standing before her was a very perplexing experience.”

Never mind why she was standing before herself. The point of this post is the word Perplexing.

It interested me because of the X. X is a rock-star letter, that raises the interest of whatever word its in. It seems to naturally attract all the attention, so that no matter what word its in, people always remember the X.

All of the letters here word together quite well, so that the word rolls off the tongue quite naturally. There is a lot of teamwork involved in this word. Despite X getting so much attention, its remains quite grounded and not arrogant at all. In fact, the other letters don’t mind X getting the attention, as more attention for X is more attention for the word.

Overall its a very well rounded and slightly underused word. I like it.

Words I hate!

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Posted by Craig on July 28, 2009 – 8:55 pm
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UPDATION
As in “please take control of the file updation”.
I always thought it wasn’t even a real word, then to my surprise I found it its real. Its a silly, awkward sounding word. Its like they someone threw this group of letters together and told them to form a word, but none of them really know what they’re doing in this word.

METRIC
As in “the number of escalations will be monitored as a metric”.
In this case it means ’statistic’, but used this way its just odd. It wasn’t meant to be used like this! Metric is a form of measurement, and that’s all it should be.

INCUMBENT
As in “our incumbent Agent is finishing up at the end of the month”.
I’d never even heard of this word until today. It sounds like a cross between incompetent and a cucumber, and that’s not a good mix.

JUXTAPOSITION
Being a writer, I’ve been thinking about this word quite a bit lately, and I have discovered that I hate the sound of it. It does not roll off the tongue nicely. Its large and ungainly, like an overweight man trying to do ballet. ‘Position’ is a nice word, but the ‘juxta’ at the front unbalances it.

Random word of the moment: CHIROPRACTIC

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Posted by Craig on June 10, 2009 – 2:41 pm
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This one was random. I just flicked to a random page in the dictionary.

The first thing I notice about this word is the C and the H, which are old buddies from way back. In fact, H is a letter you rarely see alone. Its always hanging out with either C, S, or T. Is it insecure, like the letter E? I don’t think so. It just likes company.

C features heavily in this word, but C takes everything in stride, so it won’t go to its head. C doesn’t mind if its popular or not. C is Cool.

Word of the Moment: Fragment

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Posted by Craig on June 4, 2009 – 9:12 pm
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Today’s word of the moment is not random. I wanted to talk about the word Fragment because its an interesting word.

First, and most obviously, it begins with the word Frag, which in the gaming world means to kill your enemy, making them explode into fragments (which is probably where the word comes from).

Another interesting thing about this word is that the letter T is kind of stuck on the end, out of place. Its a tag-along letter, which is odd because usually T is quite prominent in its words. Pronouncing ‘Fragmen’ is very easy, and rolls off the tongue quite nicely, but to say ‘Fragment’ you have to add the extra T on the end, almost like an afterthought. Fragmen-T. And the T at the end is almost like a spitting sound. Its a nice sounding word with a spit at the end.

It also has ‘men’ in there, as if to suggest that men are inherently fragmented. Whether this is true or not, I’ll let you decide :p

Random Word of the Moment: Release

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Posted by Craig on May 12, 2009 – 8:20 pm
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RELEASE is another word that I picked randomly from the dictionary. Its interesting in that it is yet another word with a tag-along letter at the end, that doesn’t really need to be there. But this time its E, which is a a letter who is already very popular and well-used. In fact there are two other E’s in this word, so putting a third one on the end is overkill.

It makes me wonder whether E is a bit insecure, and lacking self-confidence. Even though its popular, it might not realise that. That would explain why its trying to get into as many words as possible. The A seems perfectly content with just one showing in this word, because its secure with itself. But E on the other hand, is the opposite.

Word of the Moment: Frigid

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Posted by Craig on May 5, 2009 – 7:17 pm
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I swear I just turned to a random page in the dictionary and picked the first word I looked at. Frigid is an adjective that means either cold, or sexually unresponsive.

I always have trouble with the sound of this word. The D at the end seems out of place. A T would be much more suitable. Frigit is much easier for me to say than Frigid. Unfortunately, Frigit is not a word.

Visually, however, its a nice looking word. The two I’s make it seem slightly symetrical -  as well as the ‘g’, which is similar to an upsidedown ‘d’. All the letters in this word are nice ones. The F is a slightly quirky letter, but being the leader of the word makes it a bit more respectible.

The word Frigid reminds me of the Danish miniseries Riget. Frigid is a cold word, and Riget was a very cold show, so it seems kind of appropriate. What’s funny is in actual Danish, the word Riget doesn’t sound anything like Frigit, but it does when I say it :D

The Alphabet

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Posted by Craig on May 4, 2009 – 10:46 pm
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When I do long boring spreadsheets at work, my mind begins to wander. Today I was thinking about the alphabet. I never realised before, but I do have certain feelings towards each letter. There are some I like, and some I don’t. So in thinking about it, I grouped them together based on regular alphabetical order.

ABCDEF
These are the ‘cool kids’ that everyone likes. They popular because they’re nice guys.
My feelings about the letter E changes depending on what word its in. In ‘Leck’ (my username for a lot of things), I like it, because its next to L. But in a word like ‘Hexigon’ I don’t like it, because its near the X.

GHIJK
To be honest I almost forgot to include these ones. They’re pretty average letters.
J is a very surprising letter though. It seems quiet and unassuming but its actually a pretty cool letter once you get to know it.

LMNOP
These are my favourite letters (L is the best). I know that technically they are not the most used letters, but they feel that way to me. Or maybe I should say that they are the letters that I want to use most often. They are very calm and relaxing.

QRSTUV
These are the wierd bunch. RST are well used letters, but QUV are not, however they all hang out together regardless. They are like the wierd people you see in the street, that make you wonder what goes on inside their heads. I wish I knew why RST like to hang out with QUV. They seem like such nice guys…

WXYZ
These ones feel like foreign exchange students. They’re very different and they don’t really fit in with the other letters.
W, in particular, is a letter that I don’t even realise I use. It kind of fades into the background.

LOL, so I sound mad? Its just because there is nothing to think about with my job, I could do most of it in my sleep, so my mind starts to wander and I think about the strangest things.

I don’t think about numbers the same way as I do letters. I like the number 3, but that’s about it.