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/lit/ - Literature

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4764208 No.4764208[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

So /lit/, what is your favorite word?

Are there any particular words that excite you, or evoke emotion?

>> No.4764567

Hello /lit/, seems that good? Something the controling." "Very is and St. Augustine? Thanks other good historic Book of works of nationacademic books that every old? Close! stay ones which, foamingly chase to shall call entry level too, and itself? Weighing such my in while. It was simple Machiavell

>> No.4764579

>>4764567
Yes.

>> No.4764580

Gorge.

I can always feel like the word itself can tear into the earth.

>> No.4764589

>>4764580
That's a good one.

I love the word Thunder. Thunder has so much power and gravitas behind it. It sounds like impending doom and fear.

I love it.

>> No.4764596

>>4764579
Sartre, reporting of ice and my child, make this no material. I can asks for while on that said
>cute girl that the life of his most between branded Ahab been! For me, the quarrel with your life I have ever how is in the visitor question. Do you once novel-length shit Society or people ments?

>> No.4764602

>>4764596
No.

>> No.4764605

obama
america
freedom

>> No.4764610

>>4764602
So Oedipa is clearned around myself better moment of healthy-living Foucault" ?
Anothers have an entire life of this pretty knowledgements?

>> No.4764613

>>4764610
I don't think so.

>> No.4764624

>>4764613
Okay, whole pages of your laptop. You can I don't have are small thing darkening in fear about the destiny or fantasy on my liked refraining following me something abundary bar the wallopian" are books of novel I'm trying similar words, prefaces, and state from Plato or whole praise of thoughts, I've got.

>> No.4764630

>>4764624
I see what you are getting at. Continue.

>> No.4764633

seamstress

i love all the S's in the word; feels as though the word itself has been delicately sewn together

>> No.4764635

>>4764630
Which blood and sobbing, but spent up for my Grandma, but, brief readers, etc. -- for perhaps there he believe so much such as usual, and something I know and verbiage piled centuries (that it way help me unreconcile you will be disturbed at night or say is totally liked the wrong whether you're read? I mean, I know their favorite wore a demarcated

>> No.4764642

>>4764633
This is so surreal, but I completely understand what you mean.

Words are neat.

>> No.4764644

Currently I like "absurd". It's not used much in my area so it has a special emphasis that I love. Especially in the right context.

>> No.4764650

>>4764567
>>4764596
>>4764610
>>4764624
i think it's marginally interesting what you're doing but can you not in this thread

/lit/s favorite words seems like an awesome topic to discuss and it'd be cool if that weren't compromised

>> No.4764655

I like "Furthermore"
I mostly write amateur philosophy.
Yes, I'm a faggot.

>> No.4764656

>>4764644
I feel like absurd is slightly overused. But each to his own.

I love the word Despair. A very powerful word which should be used sparingly.

>> No.4764658

bucolic

>> No.4764659

>>4764650
ITT: We have a man!—aye, and I'm content and mentary and insanity.

>> No.4764660

dappled

this word has an inexplicable pleasant glow to it for me. a word that in its look and pronunciation reminds me of its meaning

>> No.4764669

>>4764656
"despair" so good; i feel an involuntary but unexpressed frown when i read that word.

i also agree on the overuse of the word absurd, but i think that when the word is nested in the right context it has a lot of power... there's really just one use/definition of that word that still levels me

>> No.4764677

>>4764669
Gore.

But only when used in a serious manner to refer to something grotesque. It has a large impact in my mind.

Reminds me of Blood Meridian.
"He was shot in the head and a double-handful of gore flew out of the back of his head and landed on the ground beneath him."

>> No.4764681

Esoteric

>> No.4764693

Arroyo

Why? I don't really know.

>> No.4764695

>>4764681
Esoteric can be a great word, but most of the time it feels like a try-hard word. Sounds dumb, but that is how I feel.

>> No.4764697

Shtup

Mélange

Maelstrom

Defenestrate

Oracular

I also enjoy 'melancholia,' mainly for its lapse in relevance.

>> No.4764698

>>4764208
Contemplative

>> No.4764702

>>4764677
that's an amazing use of "gore" holy shit

a more specific word could've evoked a more pointed image but "gore" suggests something too overwhelming to be detailed... definitely a very heavy, dense word

>> No.4764704

I just love the way "quarrel" sounds.

>> No.4764705

>>4764702
You should read Blood Meridian. It's an amazing book. Completely full of those type of sentences.

>> No.4764708

>>4764695
agreed. i think people are quick to employ the word because it sounds like what it is attempting to describe (esoteric strikes many as an esoteric word, i think), but more often than not replacing the word esoteric with a few more descriptive, tangible words makes for a much fuller description

>> No.4764715

>>4764705
i've always been hesitant only because i've assumed that i could get what i want out of the language elsewhere without having to wade through the excessive violence

but i see how that'd be a super badass read anyhow and most definitely will read it

>> No.4764716

mephitic
yclept
farinaceous
tonsure
philomuthia
dandle
dord
deodand

the list goes on...
all of them really

>> No.4764720

>>4764697
mélange

that's a fantastic word and the accent doesn't even make it look douchey, just refined

>> No.4764723

>>4764715
The violence is not excessive. It is just "there". There is no other way to describe it.

The violence is presented like a painting. You have to decide how you feel about it. The author is completely neutral.

>> No.4764729

>>4764716
i just looked up deodand because that's an awesome word and was totally blown away by an even more incredible definition

words are the best, thanx yo

>> No.4764741

Velleity. It carries a mild nothing with it, very apropos.

>> No.4764743
File: 34 KB, 460x276, 1396595992113.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4764743

>>4764605

>> No.4764749

>>4764723
interesting; i've always had the (upon reflection, mostly baseless) notion that the violence was nearly fetishized. "presented like a painting" that's a wonderful way to put it; i always think of Lolita as "an honest portrait" and that's really the only way i justify the squirminess of the whole ordeal of reading it, acknowledging that it's been written, etc

>> No.4764755

>>4764749
It is nowhere near being fetishized. There is no meaning or goal behind the violence. It is just "there". It is just presented as what it is.

Like an elephant in the room, which the reader himself must decide whether to address or not.

>> No.4764757

>>4764749
Read Blood Meridian. It is heart-wrenching, chilling, disturbing and cold. It is the only book which has given me nightmares.

But man, is it an amazing read.

>> No.4764760

>>4764741
what a great word
it reads like it barely exists, so fitting

>> No.4764766

niggardly

>> No.4764788

>>4764757
i feel like i can't not read it now. you win, and i will.

>> No.4764791

sibilant

What a great word

>> No.4764792

>>4764788
Great! Make a thread and share your thoughts after.

I've read it twice, and it is every bit as.... well, it's hard to describe.

>> No.4764794

Seduce

The way it rolls off of the tongue. Gives me a boner just saying it.

>> No.4764795

>>4764794
Seduce is great, even if it feels a bit overused.

>> No.4764802

>>4764208
pococurante

>> No.4764806

red
im not kidding, my favorite word is actually red

>> No.4764808

>>4764806
Really? Is it your favorite color?

Crimson is a better word than red, anyhow.

>> No.4764816

>>4764808
hipster

>> No.4764819

Asphyxiate is one that is more aesthetically pleasing than aurally pleasing for me.

>> No.4764822

>>4764808
no thats the weird part, my favorite colour is azure/grey-blue

red is just the word that conjures the strongest associations in me when i read, hear or speak it, Im not sure why. it feels very 'alive'

I get a lot of synesthesia from music and my favorite pieces all sound red to me

>> No.4764825

>>4764816
Crimson is a cool-ass word, nigga.

>> No.4764837
File: 70 KB, 1280x720, roma.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4764837

When Ricky Roma says, "Because this is how we keep score, bubby." But it is impossible to spell "bubby" in English, because there is no diphthong pair for that vowel sound.

>> No.4764880

>>4764825

scarlet > crimson

>> No.4764892

Poignant.

Especially when people say it.

>> No.4764896

unthaw

>> No.4764914

wiggle

snickerdoodle

piglet

crinkle

chubby

humdinger

cloying

>> No.4764979
File: 297 KB, 702x900, burrowing-owl-8956.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4764979

Dwindling.

Strange that (in some cases) such a tragic meaning could be expressed by a word so pretty.

>> No.4764985

>>4764979
>the sound/written symbol of words is arbitrary
its like the first precept of language anon

>> No.4764995

>>4764208
iliac. made even sweeter by being followed by crest.

>> No.4764997

>>4764995
id never heard that word before its beautiful

>> No.4765031
File: 54 KB, 625x569, Sith Absolute.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4765031

>>4764985

>> No.4765055

slug

>> No.4765082

Echolalia

the sound made by infants in imitation of human speech.

Great word for poetry/metaphor etc.

>> No.4765087

>>4765082
I mean how the fuck do you insert that word into anything and have it sound natural

>> No.4765152
File: 121 KB, 970x311, Middens_Poster_Top_Cropped.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4765152

>>4765087
Probably something in poetic prose, has a good sound to it

"The opened earth wailed in sucking echolalia"

Anyhow my favorite word would be gloaming

>> No.4765172

>>4765152
It seems like it would need to be said semi-ironically
'His stunted love groping for her in an echolalia of affect....;^)'

>> No.4765182

>>4765172
The echolalia of her breathing in the perfume of the crumpled morning after sheets lay whispering beside me long after she left.

>> No.4765194

>>4765182
But...that isnt what the word means
how is her breathing the childlike imitative attempt of spech? or are you saying such an attempt lingers in your memory after the breathing is over?

>> No.4765208

>>4765194
echolalia isn't limited to children, it's any automatic repetition. autism, tourettes, dementia, schizophrenia and ocd all regularly feature it. children show it in order to learn speech, but without that context, there's no necessity for it to be childlike, just compulsive.

>> No.4765210

Reverence is pretty cool

>> No.4765213

>>4765208
Oh my bad. I misunderstood the anons definition
I thought it as a 'malformed imitation' or something along those lines

I just googled it and its clear now

>> No.4765219

>>4765213
it's a feature in kurt vonnegut's breakfast of champions, which i think is the only time i've seen it outside medical literature. good book, worth checking out; the movie isn't awful either, probably some of the least know bruce willis.

>> No.4765225

Languorous

i like how it sounds, what it means, and how it's spelled

>> No.4765235

>>4765219
Ive read that actually, it is a good book. I dont think its in the top echelon of vonnegut's stuff with Mother Night, Jailbird, Cats Cradle though. Not a huge vonnnegut fan though so my opinion isnt worth too much

Its a very pretty word anyway

>> No.4765249

>>4765235
Good taste; have you read Bluebeard? It's the only one I'd press if you haven't read him through. I like Vonnegut as a quick read; I think I've got through all his work a few times now from any of them being a solid holiday book.

>> No.4765312

>>4765087
this guy >>4765152
is right.
My usage was "echolalia of most fervent duress"

>> No.4765320

>>4765249
Oh no I haven't Ill give it a go
I feel the same way about him, hes easy but not overly fluffy

>> No.4765332

Sloth

>> No.4765339

Valedictorian

What a magnificent word.

>> No.4765345

Sardonic.

>> No.4765356

Dreich

Wonderful word. Perfectly captures in it's sound what it describes.

>> No.4765363

>>4764880
Scarlet is too feminine.

>> No.4765368
File: 7 KB, 275x183, t3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4765368

moxie

>> No.4765371

Exquisite
Fornication
Jouissance
Leisure

>> No.4765376

>>4765363
It's a little scar you get from a delicate human bite

>> No.4765379

>>4765376
No, it's a shade of red in this context.

>> No.4765392

>>4765379
A subpar shade compared to alizarin.

>> No.4765406

>>4765392
Everybody knows that crimson is the best.

The sky was dimming into a deep red, as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon.
As the lost sun’s last light danced through the particle filled atmosphere, crimson clouds were darkening and the moon started to look like a bloodshot eye in the sky. It would appear to a less learned man that god himself was looking down in disdain upon his very own creation, with intent to rain biblical flames down onto the mountains of man in order to relinquish them of their sins

>> No.4765414

>>4764208
Euphoria.

>> No.4765417

>>4765414
That world has been ruined for me by 4chan. I love that word, but it's meaning has been tainted.

>> No.4765434

>>4765406
I'd prefer vermillion for that context; crimson, let alone its superior cousin alizarin, clouds link too loosely with the flaming book rain of god for visceral sympathy.

>> No.4765438

>>4764208
Is that your GF OP, in your pic?

>> No.4765441

>>4765438
No, I'm a righty.

>> No.4765448

>>4765434
I don't understand what you mean. Please elaborate.

>> No.4765449

>>4765371

Love jouissance.

Also squemish.

>> No.4765451

Facetious

>> No.4765456

>>4765448
A more orange tinged red rather than a low blue complement would be a preferable hue for your imagery.

>> No.4765458

Luthomiction

>> No.4765460

>>4765456
I like the letter rhyme that is Crimson Clouds. It makes it seem more aggressive. My English teacher loved it.

The word crimson has this sinister intonation, at least in my mind.

>> No.4765462

I love everything about the word "beautiful".

It can be used to describe so many things.

>> No.4765463

>>4765458
>>4765451
>>4765368
>>4765345
>>4765332

You know, this thread would be a lot more interesting if you stated why you love the word.

>> No.4765468

>>4765462
That's a bit to plain for my taste.

I like gorgeous or exquisite better.

You could even couple beautiful together with a second word to spice it up.

A magnificent beauty. An incomparable beauty.

>> No.4765474

>>4765460
Vermilion creates assonance across the two clause from atmosphere to darkening; imperial decrees were written in vermilion ink, made from cinnabar, which in itself is a slant rhyme with sinister; I don't give a shit what your English teacher thinks.

>> No.4765477

>>4765474
*clauses

>> No.4765478

>>4765474
Why do angry all of a sudden?

Vermillion would break up the word flow. It would seem out of place.

Go play Pokemon if you love vermillion and cinnabar so much.

>> No.4765481

Quibble: It sounds exactly like what it is.

Sherbert: a funny sounding misspelling that has gained validity

Raunchy: I like it and its ring.

Verisimilitude: cool history, meaning, and attitude.

Panache: I love the phrase, "he's got PANACHE."

Also wan and orgiastic make me giddy.

>> No.4765482

>>4765478
so*

>> No.4765486

Onanisme . (Dont know if "onanism" exists in english) anyhow , love to use it figuratively to depict someone who shows off : "Il se lança sans scrupules dans une description de ses exploit qui ne fût pas denuée d'onanisme)

>> No.4765488

>>4765463

kvetch and cavil

>> No.4765490

>>4765478
Apathy isn't anger. Go play Pokemon if you prefer it to improving your word choices.

>> No.4765493

moist

>> No.4765497

>>4765490
I am saying that I disagree. You are not the authority on word choices. You must accept that you are not correct in all cases.

>> No.4765498

>>4765486
It does fucking exist. Mea culpa

>> No.4765503
File: 1000 KB, 400x300, 1396974337687.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4765503

>>4765463
moxie: a love affair
mixture of meaning, the way it sounds and the way it looks good on paper

>> No.4765505

Elegant, miscellaneous, silt, freeloader, frenetic, billow, cranny, xenophobic, glossolalia, crack, prophylactic, proclivity, promontory, cathexis, eidetic, lustre, nacreous, phosphorescent, lewd, uncouth, ethnographic, schadenfreude, benign, honorific, invariably, zenith, megalomaniac, nubuck, quaffed, kooky, talcum, rapier, and I guess grandiloquent.

>> No.4765508

>>4765505
Do you know the difference between singular and plural?

>> No.4765513

>>4765497
You have no reasons besides it makes you feel that way. As someone who read it, I imagined crimson and it did not seem to be the type of sky you were describing, because I know what crimson looks like ,first off, and, secondly, how it's used well, rather than cheaply, in text. You are also not an authority, even on your own word choices, and you need to give me something more than feels to justify it. Had you argued for a cacophonous disorientating effect rather than just alliteration and some vague sense of personally ascribed doom, which the reader would have to pick up from your later context not the colour, I would probably have found it justifiable. But this is not the case, and I have found something with canonical reasons to be better than your choice or its justifications in the absence of that diversion. Double down with some reasoning why its better not just you're not the boss of me if you need me to find this something other than preciousness. Otherwise, I have no further argument.

>> No.4765517

>>4765508

>Are there any particular words that excite you, or evoke emotion?

Do you know the difference between pedantic and stupid?

>> No.4765519

>>4765513
I did not post my entire text. It is quite long, but the word choices are accounted for. I have no need to get your approval from your imposed authority. I will not feed your ego.

>> No.4765525

>>4765517
Why not just post the entire fucking dictionary while you're at it?

>> No.4765537

>>4765525

Probably because the dictionary is full of shit words, such as: you, are, an, idiot, so, just, stop, now.

>> No.4765542

>>4764656
>I love the word Despair. A very powerful word which should be used sparingly.
i wanted to avoid the term depressed and tell people anonymously over the internet that i was in a perpetual state of despair but that seemed to trivialise the word so i havent

>> No.4765551

>>4765542
try ennui or lassitude, you'll sound too gay for it to trivialise anything but your despair.

>> No.4765557

The word "spirit" and the word "soul" have the power to put me in a state of awe if used in the right context.

>> No.4765582

>>4765551
ennui is actually one of my favorite words, and i also dont use it for that exact reason

lassitude does not conjure the same image of struggling artist

>> No.4765592

>>4765557
Those words always seemed corny to me.

Can you post an example?

>> No.4765599

>>4765503
>it's so 90's
>go for it
>uses a gif
>not webm
Sure is 90's in here

>> No.4765613

Animosity.

I feel it includes emotion along with its description of sheer anger.

>> No.4765620

>>4765582
Acedia is the classy choice for expressing immense laziness in the most pretentious way possible.

>> No.4765621

Disembark. It sounds like a gangplank.

>> No.4765674

mellifluous: sounds exactly like what it means, just lovely
floccinaucinihilipilification: a word mocking its own meaning
boycott: its sound once again invariably entwined with its meaning
circumlocutory: this word feels serpentine while reading each bit, "snaking" its way past you

>> No.4765711

Ancient, age-old, antiquity. Basically, any extremely descriptive adjectives of old.
Esoteric.
Depravity, lunacy, madness.
Batrachian.

>> No.4765715

Bravado

I like it because it's a word that sounds like what it is.

>> No.4765726

>>4765711
Holy shit, I didn't even notice some one else posted esoteric, holy fuck.

>> No.4765765

I've had a thing for "elegiac" of late. "Sanguine", "psychopomp", "acheron", and "sepulchre" are also cool.

>> No.4765917

>>4765711
>Ancient, age-old, antiquity. Basically, any extremely descriptive adjectives of old.
agree with you here

>> No.4765940

Perdition- So absolute. Unyeildingly thorough destruction. Panoptic absence. Awesome.

>> No.4765947

Prism
Lowly
Strengths

>> No.4765955

>>4764697
Melancholia and Oracular are great, agreed

>> No.4766002

Ocular: it has this pop to it which I imagine is what an eyeball being sucked from its cavity would sound like.

>> No.4766053

Probably 'nigger.'

>> No.4766055

These are the worst kinds of threads. Everyone goes to thesaurus.com and pokes around until they find a word obscure and polysyllabic enough to make them seem cultured when the fact of the matter is none of them have ever used the word in any manner of speaking or writing.

These are the threads that killed /lit/

>> No.4766101

Senate
"liquid capital"

>> No.4766135

awry

>> No.4766143

>>4766135
that's a good one. i love askew.

>> No.4766170

coalesce
fractal
petrichor
glow
communal
together
Vice
Camaraderie
The Sublime is Disappointingly Elusive

>> No.4766213

>>4764208
Dasein
Lugubrious
Rhizomatic
Myopia
Magnanimous

>> No.4766432 [DELETED] 

Halycon

>> No.4766436

Halcyon

>> No.4766437

whilst
connexion
betwixt

>> No.4766441
File: 296 KB, 680x389, askew.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4766441

>>4766143

>> No.4766443

caerulean
euphonious

>> No.4767130

Soup. But not in the culinary sense.

>> No.4767138

>>4764697
>>4765955

In a Computer Science uni. exam last year, I used the word 'oracular'. I can't exactly remember in what context, unfortunately.

>> No.4767142

>>4767138
You were probably referencing MGMT's album, Oracular Spectacular.

>> No.4767147

İstişare
İstem -or the name İstemi-

>> No.4767148

>>4767142
I think it might have been a human interaction / UI design class. If it was, then the lecturer/marker was German and didn't speak perfect English. I hated the class, and her ridiculous assignments (e.g., walk around the city and take photographs of interactive computer systems).

I think I probably said something like 'providing an oracular response'. Really can't rememb er.

>> No.4767169

Amputechture

>> No.4767199

>>4764208
Television

>> No.4767221

>>4767199
Television? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it. - C P Scott

>> No.4767232

>>4767221
It demonstrates very well the versatility of the English language. There is no rule in English saying a word can't have hybrid origins.
Television is the reason English is the Lingua Franca

>> No.4767234

exsanguination

>> No.4767235

>>4767221
Damn straight. Say longevision or say nothing.

>> No.4767241

>>4767232
>Television is the reason English is the Lingua Franca
I see what you did there.

>> No.4767271
File: 50 KB, 480x360, Office94-vi.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4767271

bathycolpian

>> No.4768505

Calamity

>> No.4768512

Swollen

It's like inflated but with an air of sickness and disease.

>> No.4768514

>>4767234
I love that word

>> No.4768602

Lump

The word is like its meanin

>> No.4768623

profligate

>> No.4768629

Syndicate. Or superfluous

>> No.4768634

fuzzy
>two z's, looks fuzzy itself

>> No.4768657

Eclipse

I love everything about it.

>> No.4768770

Cluster

>> No.4768793

Theophony

>> No.4768806

>>4768793
>Theophony
lrn2spellm80

>> No.4768815

Disdain

>> No.4768819

Serene

>> No.4768858

Saudade.

>> No.4768868

>>4764822

do you have any numerical-color associations?

>> No.4768892

Loner

>> No.4768899

Grandiloquence
I find the word ironic and see it as a sort of joke in and of itself

>> No.4769125

>>4768899
autological

>> No.4769139

>>4769125
I knew there was a word for it, couldn't quite recall though. Thanks pal

>> No.4769149

Pentasyllabic: a five syllable words denoting five syllables

>> No.4769162

>tfw reading words that people treat as really altiloquent, pompous and sesquipidelian or just generally "nice sounding" and they're common in your language
Not speaking for the whole thread, but this is true in some situations here, which is nice.
Wop btw

>> No.4769752

>>4767271
>fucked up face
>thinks boobs will carry you true life
I seriously don't know what it is with you Americlaps and boobs.
It's like your mothers feed you formula when you were a baby and now you are obsessed.

>> No.4769762

>>4769149
>>4769125
ha

>> No.4769773

tranquil

>> No.4769780

>>4769773
that's a nice one

>> No.4769875

Vladistock

>> No.4769899

>>4764208
>svelte
The pronunciation and definition are pretty cool