DIRECTORY OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
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The Logophile Lexicon - Words About Words
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WORDS ABOUT WORDS: study of words. Includes word formation, classifications, form, usage, and literary, poetic and rhetorical devices.
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​THE WRITER’S CRAFT: the celebration of language as demonstrated in storytelling and the poetic expressions of the writer’s craft.
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THE GRAMMAR PRIMER: Flashbacks of English class! This primer offers a reboot of the rules and structure of formal writing.

​VISIT THE REFERENCE CORNER: Library of articles defining words and meaning including formation, classification, etymology, writing fiction and composing poetry.

​THE LOQUACIOUS LITERARY
LOGOPHILE

DIRECTORY OF PAGES:

INTRODUCTION
​[A - C] - [D - F] - [G - I] - [J - L]
[M - O] - [P - R] - [S - U] - [V - Z]

​FROM THE REFERENCE CENTER
Word Formation - How Words are Coined
​Tracing the Etymology of a Word
Classifying a Word as Archaic or Obsolete
Misusing a Word Means 20 to Life in the Pen
Translating the Untranslatable
WORDS CAN BE
bold, impactful, simple, colorful, weak, strong, sexy, seductive, alluring or intriguing, loving, positive, light, hopeful, cheerful, happy, nostalgic and optimistic or negative, cruel, haunting, dark, ugly, heartbreaking, understated, ominous, chilling, mystical, frightening or foretelling. They can be meticulous, concise, deep, lighthearted, insightful, meaningful, provocative, intellectual, informative, philosophical, scientific, historical, or silly, nonsensical, fun, lighthearted, humorous, or fun. Intent can be ironic, figurative, sarcastic, metaphorical, colloquial, symbolic or allegorical and delivery can be melodious, mellifluous, poetic, formal, artful, classy, dramatic, dry, elegant, literary, technical, concise, verbose, dull or lyrical. Words are rare, archaic, obscure, unusual, old, forgotten, modern, newly coined, neologistic, popular.

​AND THEN THERE ARE THE ...
Words about Words

DEFINING LOGOPHILE


WHAT IS A LOGOPHILE?
​A logophile is a lover of words. They can also be called a wordie, a philologo or - used dramatically or in a sensational way - a logomaniac. That is defined as an “obsession” with words. You will see many more
words in this feature. These words definitely describe that magnetic pull a word can have on us.

LOGOPHILE is from the Greek logo meaning “word” and -phile meaning “love.” First known use 1923, first documented use, 1959.

​The earliest OED citation for “logophile” is from the Feb. 1, 1959, issue of the Sunday Times (London): It read “we are pretty sure that since all Sunday Times readers are natural and inveterate logophiles … he [the lexicographer R. W. Burchfield] will get some invaluable assistance.” Merriam-Webster says the first known use of “logophile” in English was in 1923, but it doesn’t include a citation. Source

A logophile does not have to be a writer and a writer does not have to be a logophile. The one thing they both seem to have in common though, is a voracious love for reading. They have a passion for words. Both can always be found with their nose in a book. Where else could they have discovered their passion? I would bet most of us were early readers and our parents instilled the love of books in us as babies. I have no facts or figures on this, but I can apply that description to me. Read my story.

DEFINING A WORD
It is a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence. A unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.

In linguistics, a word of a spoken language can be defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes (unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language) that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning. Or in other terms, a word is a combination of letters. For many languages, words also correspond to sequences of graphemes (letters) in their standard writing systems that are delimited by spaces wider than the normal inter-letter space, or by other graphical conventions. Words are thought of as the smallest meaningful unit of speech that can stand by themselves. The concept of "word" is usually distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of speech which has a meaning, even if it will not stand on its own.

ETYMOLOGY is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. Etymologists make use of texts, and texts about the language, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in meaning and form, when and how they entered the language.

SEE ALSO:
Tracing the Etymology of a Word

Etymology traces back to the Greek etymon“true sense” + -logia meaning ­“study of.” Dating back to classical times, etymologia was the analysis of a word in order to find its true sense. This evolved through Latin (etymologia), Old French, Greek word ἐτυμολογία (etumología), itself from ἔτυμον (étumon), meaning "true sense or sense of a truth", and the suffix -logia, denoting "the study of.” It found itself in Middle English during the 14th century as ethimolegia.

A word’s true meaning can be discovered through analysis of its parts. And that’s what philosophers believed long, long ago. Socrates, by way of the writings by Plato, believed that the names of things weren’t arbitrary or simplistically derived; they captured the essence of meaning that lay buried in the name and decoded.

ETYMOLOGY OF WORD:
The word, “word” was first recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Dutch woord, German wort, Old Norse orth, orð, Gothic waurd, waúrd, all from Germanic wurdam (unattested); akin to Latin verbum meaning “word,” Greek rhḗtōr (dialect wrḗtōr ) meaning “public speaker, orator, rhetorician,” Old Prussian wirds “word,” Lithuanian var̃das “name”

DEFINING A LEXICON
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a person, language or branch of knowledge. The Logophile Lexicon is a word list that is catered to the vocabulary of logophiles. Who loves to play with beautiful words enough to be defined as a logophile? Writers do. And they weave beautiful words together to form the oldest form of communication in history - the art of storytelling. From modern Latin, from Greek lexikon, biblion ‘meaning “book of words,” from lexis meaning “word,” from legein meaning “speak.”

Dictionaries categorize a language's lexicon (vocabulary) into lemmas (canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of words.) These can be taken as an indication of what constitutes a "word" in the opinion of the writers of that language. The most appropriate means of measuring the length of a word is by counting its syllables or morphemes.

“A love of words comes from the work of playing around with language. We learn words by hearing them, rolling them around on our tongues and in our minds like a small child does as she learns language. A person who loves language plays with it--hears words and links them with other sounds, other meanings, and other words. The patterns and sounds of language are fascinating to the lover of words.” - Barbara Chatton

JOURNEY WITH WORDS
Words alone convey basic meaning. Mood is conveyed in the way that words are strung together and understood and pronounced. Words can inspire, teach, clarify, amuse, motivate or persuade. The way we use language - in addition to the particular words we choose - is crucial for effective communications and better understanding. The more robust your vocabulary, the more effective your writing. This makes your message more powerful. Articulate writers have power behind their words; they create, motivate and inspire. They invoke deep emotions in readers. They change people’s thoughts or opinions with persuasive arguments. This is a powerful responsibility. It’s also personal. The way we use language gives insight into who we are. Our personalities, goals, motives, and desires are seen on the pages we write. The study and awareness of linguistics helps us to know why we speak and write in different ways; how general language develops; and how so many words different languages share the same roots and origins. Pretty cool right?

​VIEW MY LOGOPHILE JOURNEY IN WORDS

DIRECTORY OF WORDS
​INTRODUCTION
​​[A - C] - [D - F] - [G - I] - [J - L]
[M - O] - [P - R] - [S - U] - [V - Z]
​THE LOQUACIOUS LITERARY LOGOPHILE
​Presented by the Logophile Lexicon

THESE WORD LISTS JUST CONTAIN A SAMPLING OF THE LANGUAGE VOCABULARY.
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