As a writer, I very much enjoy using all kinds of words. Here are a few whimsical words I like or find interesting.
JENTACULAR
A nice place to start, Jentacular is something to do with a breakfast that is eaten very early in the morning, practically immediately upon getting up from bed. Something can then be Antejentacular, which means that it is before breakfast – like an antejentacular game of Mario Kart. Though, this confuses things a little, because if you are having something antejentacular, (before breakfast), that means you are eliminating the “very early, immediately upon getting out of bed” element, and surely your breakfast is no longer jentacular? – it is just breakfast. As far as I’m concerned, this causes a paradox: if you do something antejentacular, and in doing so cancel out something potentially jentacular, then you cannot have something antejentacular in the first place as it has nothing to oppose.
I suppose if you stayed in bed and played Mario Kart, then you would not need to get up, and that should retain your jentacular meal. Also, Breakfast in itself is an interesting word, because it means literally what it says - Break Fast, as in: overnight we are “fasting” because we are not eating, so we break that fast. So in that sense, the “Fast” could take place any time – Mario Kart inclusive – and therefore, “Let’s have a game of antejentacular Mario Kart,” would work.
PERSPICACIOUS
This is one of my most favourite words because I do like to think it describes me rather well. Perspicacious, other than sounding nice, means having keen insight and being mentally perceptive. I like this very much, because I pride myself in being mentally perceptive and coherent in my understandings and explanations. And so, in the way that the word describes me well, I describe other things well too, because I am perspicacious. I’ve come to think that, although I mostly get along with everyone, the people I like the most are those who are perspicacious – significantly, that Perspicaciousness is unique to them and defining of their personality. So, whereas my keen insight might be somewhat Sherlockian, others of my friends are perspicacious with food, or art or time. I find this quite important – these perspicacious people stand out to me, and I find myself not entirely getting along with people who lack this depth to their personality. Being perspicacious is a very deep understanding with a part of your mind, and I find that pretty much all of my friends are “mind” people, as opposed to “body” people, who are people who train to be athletes, or whatever – I seem to only really find appreciation in perspicacious mind people.
QUALTAGH
This describes the first person you meet or see after leaving your house. It is such a wonderfully fun word and ends up being reminiscent of all sorts of things – for example, it sticks in my mind leaving my house to go to school each morning and seeing the same person; perhaps my friend. The word comes from the Manx language which is spoken on the Isle of Man, where everyone has three legs instead of the usual two – I would like to know what other strangely specific words they have. It is nice to feel that there is also a personal sense to the word, because despite the word meaning the same thing it will also mean something different to each individual - my Qualtagh will most likely be different to yours. An extra specification is that the qualtagh is the first person you see on New Year’s Day – I think that makes it a nice kind of game or celebration to be remembered throughout the year; especially if you see that crazy dog lady in the fluorescent jacket who smells of bins.
BUNTING
Bunting is a funny word that I find rather quaintly English. For starters, it ends in “ing” without being an “ing” word – by which I mean, it is not Punting or Hunting, because going for a Punt is Punting, and going for a Hunt is Hunting, but going for a Bunt is not Bunting. “Bunt” means all sorts of different things, mainly to do with the sail of a ship and, sometimes, describes a cat lovingly pressing its head into you. Bunting though is, mainly, coloured flags or other material strung together and hung up during celebrations, like birthdays or summer Fêtes. This is the definition of Bunting for me, anyway, because I really like the idea of colourful flags hanging up around birthdays or summer fêtes, or how about if we hosted a summer fête for your birthday? There you go then. My friend Naomi knows how much I admire bunting and so used bunting wrapping paper for my birthday.
SQUIDGE
Squidge is a form of “squash” or “squeeze”. I liked to think of it as a light squeeze, something rather amiable and comforting, done to appreciate the thing you are Squidging, as opposed to squashing or squeezing something, which may have slightly more crushing connotations. Soreen's Malt Loaf claims to be "deliciously Squidgy".
The reason I mention the word, though, is because I like to play a little game with the “Squ” prefix; it makes words and speaking sound rather amusing. What you do for my game is to take a word and replace its opening sound with SQU. Like this:
“Squat are you squoing?”
“Oh, I’m just squeading a squook.”
“Is it a squood squook?”
“No. It’s Squlysses by Squames Squoyce, and it has all these squpid words in it.”
“That’s a squame.”
The mixture of S and Q together and just warmingly amusing.
The reason I mention the word, though, is because I like to play a little game with the “Squ” prefix; it makes words and speaking sound rather amusing. What you do for my game is to take a word and replace its opening sound with SQU. Like this:
“Squat are you squoing?”
“Oh, I’m just squeading a squook.”
“Is it a squood squook?”
“No. It’s Squlysses by Squames Squoyce, and it has all these squpid words in it.”
“That’s a squame.”
The mixture of S and Q together and just warmingly amusing.
ELUCIDATORY
Elucidatory means something that makes something clear or easily understood, especially by explanation. To Elucidate is to clarify. Not only do I like to think of myself as elucidatory, but this word certainly goes hand in hand with perspicacious. What interests me about this word, though, is that it has no repeated letters, and contains every single vowel. This makes it quite a good codeword for writing secret messages, because some codes require a codeword with no repeated letters. This is interesting in itself because then the word is acting under its own meaning: if the codeword is "Elucidatory" then the codeword is elucidatory.