I’m in the market for a new favorite word.
Remember my watchword picker? Those words were crowdsourced from an Instagram favorite word poll. I had done something similar back in Twitter days where I traded a chance to win a free session of my “Dummies for Authors” class for new followers’ favorite words. People liked this idea, I guess, because I received in total 108 words. Of those 108, four were SERENDIPITY.
Now, I’m not judging anyone’s choice of favorite word, but seeing SERENDIPITY appear so often made me realize there are two ways to look at a favorite word: you can like the word for how it looks and sounds or you can like a word for its meaning.
To me, SERENDIPITY belongs in the latter category. I subscribe to serendipity and I have great trust in things falling into place but I don’t know if saying the word gives me any particular pleasure. “IPITY” is a fun chain of letters to pronounce, but the “S” start seems severe. Overall, I think the sound of “CHANCE” is better matched to the meaning of random but meaningful coincidences.
So this brings us to me. Previously (up until, like, twenty minutes ago) my favorite word was ARCHIPELAGO. But to be honest, I appreciate it more for the image of exploration it conjures than I do for how it sounds. “PELAGO” is nice, but if that’s my favorite part, I may as well pick PELICAN for my favorite word. But I don’t like PELICAN that much.
My friend Kristan (who is a poet and who I trust on the subject of favorite words) has SHAMPOO as her favorite word. The “SH” start and the “OO” end… settling into the “M” before popping with the “P”… this very well could be the perfect favorite word but it’s not quite for me.
ZAMBONI is a great word but I can’t pick it because that’s my friend Jason’s favorite. SPELUNK might win in both being fun to say and carrying a fun meaning (caves! exploration! diamonds! bats!) but that’s my son’s.
I should maybe turn this matter over to word expert (and my Invisible Things collaborator), Jennifer Thomas. I have no doubt she could recommend something lovely. Maybe SUEDE, SOLIGENE, or SUSURROUS. You know, all these S words are making me thing that maybe the answer is right in front of my face. Shampoo Kristan once mocked up a cover for self-help books as written by members of our families. This is what she imagined I would write:
So! The next time I’m asked what my favorite word is, I’ll say:
Reading about your word explorations has left me grinning ear to ear, Jerrold. You’ve covered so many all-star words! I hope that a few new people will discover soligene as a result of reading your post.
Ha ha! I hope so too as I (almost) singlehandedly attempt to make blogging relevant again. I had fun putting this post together and think I’m motivated enough to keep it up a while longer. At any rate, it’s great to hear from you!