emersonswordoftheday-blog

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Witty

The word for today is witty. The reason that I picked this word is because I hear it so often, it’s really thrown around pretty loosely, but what does it really mean? sure it means smart, we all know a witty response when we hear them, but what makes something have that extra level of class that makes it qualify as witty? what gives it that indefinable quality? The actual definition of witty is showing or characterized by quick and inventive verbal humour. however I often see parents telling their kids how witty they are simply because they understood something. It also seems that any response to anything that is even mildly humorous, weather it’s clever or not, is called witty nowadays. It seems as though the real meaning of the word witty has become irrelevant to the people of todays society, because if everything is witty is anything really witty? and yes I understand that I have said witty a lot in the last few sentences but that’s kind of my point, the word is overused and underappreciated. then again what is and isn’t witty is subjective, to some people a simple joke with a clever twist is witty, to others a witty joke must be completely original, and to others still, they just don’t care who thinks things are witty, which is probably a healthy response. 

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Fragile

Today I decided to ask someone else a word that they found interesting. My friend thought for a few seconds before responding, “fragile”. I found this an interesting choice because I feel that the words people choose to use can say a lot about them. This is not to say Roma is fragile, quite the opposite is the truth, but when I asked her why she chose the word she said it’s because she believes that writing can be fragile itself. I thought this was an interesting take on the word and it made me wonder whether the words that interest us in some way reflect the kind of writing that we produce, for example if Roma is attracted to the word fragile, perhaps she would be really good at writing a fragile style of writing. Maybe she would be really good at writing deep, sensitive writing that is personal to her. I would be interested to test this theory, asking people to choose a word that interests them and then asking them to write in the style of that word, and to see if that changes the quality of their writing compared to a normal style or a word that doesn’t interest them. I also wonder if this could be a way to find my own style of writing, by basing stories around words that I find interesting or that call to me. Hopefully I can test this and see if my writing improves, if not then I suppose some words are just interesting to particular people.

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Delirious

The word for today is delirious. the meaning of being delirious is in an acutely disturbed state of mind resulting from illness or intoxication and characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech. The reason I chose this word is because I see it so often in writing, and I was wondering why it is used so frequently. The most common occurrence of the word that I find is that when someone is making assumptions that another person finds outrageous or would simply like the first person to believe are untrue, the second person will refer to the first person as delirious, trying to dismiss the assumptions as outrageous or simply untrue. I also see the word used often to refer to people who are exhausted, whether it be due to heat or lack of sleep, when they are rambling nonsense. Authors often like to create situations in which someone acts odd or incoherent, which I suppose is why the use of Delirious in writing is so frequent. 

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Irony

Today my word is irony. now obviously we all know what irony is, it’s the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. the reason I chose irony is because I find that it can be used so well in so many situations, and it often is. almost any situation can be made ironic. the proper use of irony is great to see, but I find that people sometimes don’t understand how to use irony correctly, or just end up using it in poor taste. I remember in my elementary school classroom there was a picture on the wall that tried to explain irony. i feel that it embodies the general spirit of irony quite well. the picture said, “Irony is drawing a picture of a tree on a piece of paper. That I feel is one of the best examples of simple irony done well. 

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Benevolent

The first word that I have chosen as my word of the day is Benevolent. I had often seen the word benevolent show up in books or heard people say it in conversation, but it was always one of those words that I sort of understood but didn’t really get what it meant. To me it always seemed like a word people used in place of ignorance or just absent mindedness, but the actual meaning is nothing like that really. The word benevolent actually means well meaning or kindly, although I suppose that kind of fits in with what I thought about the word before, just in a different way then I realized. Often when people use the term well meaning or benevolent it is because although someone did something wrong or the result of their actions ended up doing more harm then good, they were well meaning and had the best intentions with what they were doing, just poor execution. 

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Introduction

My Creative Writing 12 class was given the task of creating a blog. In this blog we were asked to challenge ourselves to do something of interest everyday. Originally I couldn’t come up with anything I wanted to do, and so I thought i’d just spend an hour outside each day without technology. Turns out it’s not that easy to write about doing what is essentially nothing. And so now I have finally come up with what I really want to do. I am going to find a word that interests me or that I just enjoy each day and write about that word. I’m going to define it and say why it interests me or what about the word spoke to me.