Last week one of my book-loving friends asked me, “What are some of your favorite words?” The question seemed to come out of the blue (until I remembered that she had recently listed some of her favorite words in a Facebook post,) and I was completely stumped for a moment. Then a word popped in to my head: jocularity! I don’t know why that’s the first word I thought of, but there it was, and I do love it. Of course, anyone who grew up watching “MASH” on television will remember that Father Mulcahy was given to use the word with some frequency, whenever the surgeons got up to their typical boisterous banter and hilarious hijinks. It’s a word that has stayed in my mind throughout the years, probably because I loved the show so much, and I imagine that’s where I heard “jocularity” for the first time … even though the word dates back to the early 17th century!
I thought about my friend’s question for the rest of the week, and eventually came up with several more words that I find wonderful for one reason or another, sometimes just because I love the way they roll off my tongue: arctophile, pumpernickel, luminescent, boulangerie, riddikulous (no, that’s not misspelled, it IS a spell – from the literally wonderful world of “Harry Potter”,) gesundheit, wondrous, galactic, delightful, huzzah, and bazinga (an exclamation from another of my all-time favorite television shows, “The Big Bang Theory” – and also, as I just learned, the name of a brand new, tiny species of jellyfish that was discovered about two years ago – about the same time I almost gave the name to my very own Sheldon Cooper.) No word list is complete without, of course, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (Which is actually in the Oxford English Dictionary!) Finally, and not unexpectedly I should think, I love the word “felinity.” The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity, thank you T. S. Eliot and your “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”
As I look over this list again, I realize that not only do I enjoy the sound of those words and the way they look when written, but I am reminded by the words of other things that I love, or experiences that have left an impression on me. Arctophile? Teddy bears, childhood, collecting bears with Mom. Galactic? Sci-fi fandom, great friends, “Star Wars” and “Star Trek.” Boulangerie? Pastries and bread! Sharing yummy stuff! Vacations to amazing places! And then we come back to felinity, the focus of much of my life since childhood, the focus of much of my work, and the focus of this blog: my beloved pets, my furbabies, and my dear forever friends. My world revolves around felinity, as do my words.
Whiskers on Kittens 