Wonderful Words

I love words. They are the tools of my trade, and I love having so many to choose from, but actually I just love the way they sound too. There are some words which trip off the tongue and which are a joy to say - tributary, fluffy, coupon. (The Welsh words cynffon and bysedd trump them all, though. Welsh has the most amazingly satisfying words I know.)

Some words not only sound good, but have good associations which make them even more spirit-warming, "chocolate" being the obvious candidate. I also love the evocative word "Exogenesis", not only because it has such an exciting and mysterious meaning, but because it is the title of one a symphony by one of my favourite bands (Muse), and the name of an episode of Star Trek. "Epiphany" is another delightful word. Some words are just funny - "discombobulated".

The English language has the richest vocabulary (ooh, I like that word too, vocabulary) in the world, with over twice the number of words of its nearest rival, and new words are appearing in the dictionary all the time - much to the disgust of purist Scrabble players. I recently saw a quote which referred to "these troublous times". I've no idea whether "troublous" is a real word (troublesome, surely) but it sounds so nice that it really should be.

BBC News recently surveyed people about their favourite words. "Spelunking" was in there (exploring caves) as were "runcible", "tatterdemalion", "mellifluous" and "sepulchral". Excellent words all!

What's your favourite word?