idiolect [ID-ee-uh-lekt]: a person’s individual speech pattern

Criticism that the classic doomed love story glorifies immaturity misses the point: Shakespeare was riffing on how people use the young/old binary to manipulate others.

The point of the play isn’t the exhilaration or the dunderheadedness of young love. Rather, the point is the language itself: the dazzling, disturbing rhetorical force of old/young, corrupt/innocent, experienced/naïve.

oneirataxia: the inability to differentiate between dreams and reality

Why Do We Hate Certain Words?

The curious phenomenon of word aversion.

Jason Riggle, a professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Chicago, says word aversions are similar to phobias. “If there is a single central hallmark to this, it’s probably that it’s a more visceral response,” he says. “The [words] evoke nausea and disgust rather than, say, annoyance or moral outrage. And the disgust response is triggered because the word evokes a highly specific and somewhat unusual association with imagery or a scenario that people would typically find disgusting—but don’t typically associate with the word.” These aversions, Riggle adds, don’t seem to be elicited solely by specific letter combinations or word characteristics. “If we collected enough of [these words], it might be the case that the words that fall in this category have some properties in common,” he says. “But it’s not the case that words with those properties in common always fall in the category.”   

Lonely negative words - words with no opposite positives:

1. disgust
2. disheveled
3. inscrutable
4. ineffable
5. disappoint
6. indelible
7. impeccable
8. indolent
9. indefatigable
10. incessant
11. reckless
12. disgruntled

banjax [ban-jaks]: to damage, ruin, destroy, smash

invidious [in-VID-ee-uh s]: (of an action or situation) Likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others

xeric [ZEER-ik]: (of an environment or habitat) Containing little moisture; very dry

cathexis [kuh-THEK-sis]: investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea