{"id":6348,"date":"2015-02-27T23:28:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T03:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=6348"},"modified":"2015-02-27T23:31:30","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T03:31:30","slug":"epeolatry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2015\/02\/27\/epeolatry\/","title":{"rendered":"Epeolatry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Babblative<\/strong> adj.<\/i> tending to babble, prattle; loquacious.<\/p>\n

Words are so fascinating. I think we often take for granted the sheer number of words that exist in the world – there are over 1 million words in the English language alone, and an estimated 7,000 languages in the world. Many are oddly specific – if you’re ever looking for a word to describe something relating to or resembling a hedgehog, just slip the word erinaceous<\/i> into your sentence. Ever feel so sick that you have a manic urge to dance? Me neither, but apparently it’s called tarantism<\/i>, and it was very popular in the 15th century. <\/p>\n

How about words in other languages that get even more specific than English words? The Georgian word shemomedjamo<\/i> describes that phenomenon of when you accidentally eat a whole food-thing (i.e. that pie that your Aunt Jan brought to Thanksgiving dinner that you polished off all by yourself<\/i> while your sister started in on the dishes.) It’s that experience when you’re so full but the food is so good and before you know it there is nothing left.<\/p>\n

If you need any more convincing that words are pretty weird but also incredibly interesting, here is a list of some of the words I found scanning the internet. I challenge you to use one of these in a sentence, and take note of the bewildered looks you get when you do.<\/p>\n

Abecedarian:<\/strong> of or relating to the alphabet, alphabetically arranged<\/p>\n

Sobriquet:<\/strong> a descriptive name or epithet, a nickname<\/p>\n

Foofaraw:<\/strong> frills and fancy finery; a disturbance or to-do over a trifle<\/p>\n

Embrangle:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0to mix up in confusion; to make complicated; to bewilder<\/p>\n

Prolegomenon:<\/strong> an introductory discourse, especially a formal essay introducing a work of considerable length or complexity<\/p>\n

Kaelling <\/strong>(Danish): a woman who stands at her doorstep yelling obscenities at kids<\/p>\n

Jung<\/strong> (Korean): a feeling stronger than love that is only proven through surviving a difficult argument<\/p>\n

Ohrwurm <\/strong>(German): a tune or melody that infects a population<\/p>\n

Verbivore:<\/strong> lover of words<\/p>\n

Epeolatry:<\/strong> the worship of words<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about cool words, check out this<\/a> article about cool words, this<\/a> article about words about words, and this<\/a> blog entirely dedicated to language!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Babblative adj. tending to babble, prattle; loquacious. Words are so fascinating. I think we often take for granted the sheer number of words that exist in the world – there are over 1 million words in the English language alone, and an estimated 7,000 languages in the world. Many are oddly specific – if you’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6351,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6348\/revisions\/6351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}