The letter quoted below conveys an exuberant love and mastery of words, as well as being a world class job application.  Savour some of the words that sparkle, appeal, intrigue or otherwise grab me, including those in other languages.  And adoring alliteration, new words are added on Wednesdays.  Wednesday, word day.

Dear Sir,

I like words.  I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as strait-laced, cantankerous, pectinous, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp. 

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around. 

I have just returned and I still like words. May I have a few with you? 

Robert Pirosh

 

Source: Letter No. 009 in ‘Letters of Note’, comp. Shaun Usher (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2013), p. 36

Bedizen

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...

Nesh

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Errin-og

Williamson says this is a 'name given by fishermen to porpoises', perhaps in dialect.  It doesn't appear in the massive...

Run-rig

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Chuinter

To hoot (as in owl) or to hiss (as in snake).  'Chuintant' is hushing, and 'un chuintement' is a hoot...

Glede

A live coal, an ember; any of several birds of prey, especially a kite.  Most dictionaries only give the bird...

Fretted

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Source: OED and Barry Lopez, Arctic...

Slummock

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Potwalloper

'... potwallopers grazing marsh.'

This is a variant of 'potwaller', a curious and arcane English method of deciding who gets...

Threap

'They were so agreeable with each other—never fell out nor ‘threaped’.

This delightful word is now limited to Scottish and...

Mattock

An agricultural tool shaped like a pickaxe, with an adze and chisel edge as the ends of the head. I...

Colourful capulanas

A sarong worn mainly in Mozambique but also in other parts of Africa. They come in beautiful abstract designs and strong colours.

...

Economists

Just as I was thinking of instituting a monthly round up of collective nouns as part of this celebration of...

Time to latibulate

'Lockdown' sounds wretchedly penal and miserably incarcerate, so I was delighted to meet this alternative. How much more pleasant to...

The surface of the word should be vast.

Nezami – Azeri poet

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