Every Word?


from the ABC set The Long and the Short of It...

Every word counts? Bit Kabbala-istic for me. No, that’s every letter. Every word matters. Every word seeps; into your consciousness: so you’ll use it yourself one day. Nothing is original, there are only scrambled, filtered and tired rearrangements of what has gone before. So what is the point? How can you make something new? Coin a word: shoe-horn a neologism into whatever you write – use a kratolave if necessary. Still, hard to demonstrate what your brand new coinage means, isn’t it? Use a word in a new way: hard one this. Someone, somewhere has already riddled the dictionary to see what fell out.
Some of the words above don’t count, really. They’re somewhat off the point aren’t they? I mean, necessity is a pre-requisite of ‘counting,’ ‘mattering’, if you will? I do. One, two, three: they count, sure: but do they matter? More than say: π? On the whole, I’d say it’s moot. It matters more how you use them. Don’t use a word in a new way, until you know how to use it properly. Is pedant really an insult? I’m tired with people who say ‘bored of’.

Some words don’t. Innumerate. There, you can’t say that one counts.

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Comments

tcook | December 10, 2007 - 15:57

I like this - an antidote to 200 worders? Or is it?

Ewan | December 10, 2007 - 16:02

A bit of fun, 200 worders are a great exercise.

Kropotkin38 | December 10, 2007 - 18:38

Enjoyed this Ewan. Perhaps you could get round the 200 word limit by not double-counting words as they are repeated; instead of a 200 word piece you might have a piece with as many words as you like but only chosen from a 200 word vocabulary.