My post yesterday focused on some unusual words included in Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and it also highlighted an Instagram Reels that focused on some favorite and not-so-favorite words of individuals.
Some of the favorite words included pizzazz, smithereens, bungalow, bumblebee, and glockenspiel. Some of the more unpopular words included twelfths, moist, pamphlet, and galoshes.
Some of my personal favorites were megalopolis and hootenanny, and my least favorites included regurgitate, mooch and dongle.
The complete post is HERE.
I asked my wife if she had any favorite words, and she responded, “Well, not off the top of my head, but,” she added, “my mother used to say that people learning English would often say the words ‘cellar door’ were beautiful.”
Say what?
That sounded so random to me that I Googled “do people like the sound of ‘cellar door’” – and lo and behold, look what popped up!
Some of the favorite words included pizzazz, smithereens, bungalow, bumblebee, and glockenspiel. Some of the more unpopular words included twelfths, moist, pamphlet, and galoshes.
Some of my personal favorites were megalopolis and hootenanny, and my least favorites included regurgitate, mooch and dongle.
The complete post is HERE.
I asked my wife if she had any favorite words, and she responded, “Well, not off the top of my head, but,” she added, “my mother used to say that people learning English would often say the words ‘cellar door’ were beautiful.”
Say what?
That sounded so random to me that I Googled “do people like the sound of ‘cellar door’” – and lo and behold, look what popped up!
The New York Times even wrote about it back in 2010, HERE. I loved Dorothy Parkers take on it:
The writer and famous wit Dorothy Parker didn’t think much of the collection of beautiful words compiled in 1932 by the dictionary-maker Wilfred J. Funk, who topped his list with words like dawn, hush and lullaby. Parker said she preferred check and enclosed — but also cellar door.
And from C. S. Lewis:
Sometimes, the loveliness of cellar door is thought to be more evident when the phrase is given a different spelling. “I was astonished when someone first showed that by writing cellar door as Selladore,” C. S. Lewis wrote in 1963, “one produces an enchanting proper name.”
He's right! say the name in a seductive voice! It's quite alluring! ; )
I suspect you know what all of this information led me to investigate: Did Emily Dickinson every use the words “cellar door” in any of her poetry?
Stay tuned!
The writer and famous wit Dorothy Parker didn’t think much of the collection of beautiful words compiled in 1932 by the dictionary-maker Wilfred J. Funk, who topped his list with words like dawn, hush and lullaby. Parker said she preferred check and enclosed — but also cellar door.
And from C. S. Lewis:
Sometimes, the loveliness of cellar door is thought to be more evident when the phrase is given a different spelling. “I was astonished when someone first showed that by writing cellar door as Selladore,” C. S. Lewis wrote in 1963, “one produces an enchanting proper name.”
He's right! say the name in a seductive voice! It's quite alluring! ; )
I suspect you know what all of this information led me to investigate: Did Emily Dickinson every use the words “cellar door” in any of her poetry?
Stay tuned!
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