What the Fran

These are a few of my favourite words

This is not a serious thing. If I were clever I'd have written them into a story. I am not.

  1. Almanac. Favourite word. Closely followed by... Loofah. Both Arabic.
  2. Bungalow, dungarees. And other Hindi-Urdu loan words.
  3. Fastidious. But only when you say it like Crispin Bonham-Carter.
  4. Thenadays. You're going to say it's not a word. I'm going to say, if 'nowadays' is, 'thenadays' should be.
  5. Niblings. Not just because my niblings are my favourite things but the straightforward clarity of it.
  6. Manoeuvre. Can I spell it? Never. It remains shrouded in mystery always.
  7. Ridiculous. Basically onomatopoeic.
  8. Knelt, leant, wept. All those 'archaic' -t endings rather than the -ed.

Bonus word people hate but I will defend: Like. Specifically as a substitute for 'said'. Unlike 'said' and friends it makes no claim to objective truth. It is about the subjective vibes of an interaction which is all we really remember anyway. It is, in another use of the word, an approximation; similar.

I'm fond of loan words, because the English language is a colonial chaos, and I'm also very fond of dialects. I love a good local word and I love how language allows this and I'm worried we lose that in the great flattening out from us being less regional.

When people say "There should be a word in English for..." it's generally that there was but we don't use it anymore. If there wasn't and isn't, English is a magpie, imperialist thing, just nick the word you need from elsewhere.

(On which, I cannot tolerate commentary on people's accents. I have thoughts.)

Go on then, some words I don't like. This is not a dig at anyone who does like these words. How great it is that we are all different.

  1. Somewhat. I don't know why. I just really don't.
  2. Tad. As in, "I'll be a tad late." Insufferable.
  3. That. One of my crutch words. Used at least a hundred times a chapter, which is usually ninety-nine times too many.
  4. Read. Is it an instruction or past tense? You'll have to wait for the rest of the sentence to find out!
  5. Lost. When what you really mean is dead. She's not down the back of the settee somewhere, she's dead.
  6. Medieval, archaeology. Use æ, cowards. (Has to search for the ligature, copy and paste.) Okay, fine. You're forgiven.

Linguistics and stuff is definitely something I'd love to learn more about. I've read a few books about the history of English as a language. In the meantime, some links: