Words, Love, History

 

As a wordsmith, there are three words I love more than most. 

"I love you?"

Nope not that, although those three words carry a lot of emotion. When my husband or daughter say that I melt.

The specials words are Plethora, Gobsmacked, Knackered. The last two I never used until my life had many Brits in it.

PLETHORA

Merriman-Webster defines it as an abundance or profusion. The sound rolls around in my mouth. When I hear it, what it applies to I see in greater numbers. A plethora of flowers in the garden and my imagination fills the garden with riotous color for as far as the eye can see. In my imagination, Plethora could be a Victorian girls name. Plethora would have blond curls under a straw bonnet. She would have a straw basket of flowers and a white frock also with flowers and an empire waist.

It goes back to 1536 and used to describe too much blood than evolved into meaning overfullness.

GOBSMACKED

Literally to be hit in the mouth. I've been told it is a lower class. Used to express surprise. I first it used when I worked with several Brits in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. My imagination for the word visualizes the surprise on a face. Sometimes I imagine a person being slapped in the mouth, there head reeling back. The hit isn't with a fist but an idea.

It first appeared in 1936 as British slang.

 KNACKERED 

Exhausted. To me knackered sounds much more tired than just exhausted. It is being curled up on the couch with a hand-knitted, multi-colored afghan, eyes too heavy to read the book nestled next to my chest even if I had the energy to lift it and as much as I wanted to know what happened next. Just let those eyelids close. 

According to an entomological  dictionary the word came into usage in 1883 and had evolved from from and 1855 word meaning to kill or castrate.

They say words have meaning. They trigger imaginations. 

Words have history too.