Word

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)

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Words like winter snowflakes.

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 – Homer (c. 700 B.C.)
 – The Iliad, bk. III, l. 222

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Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

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 – Horace (65-8 B.C.)
 – Epistles, bk. I, epistle xviii, l. 71

A word has the power to define, to bind, to create, to destroy. Truely, a poet has power undreamt of by kings.

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

The best way to discover new words is by reading a book.

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

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There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.


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 – Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
 – The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain [1952], st. I

What I feel for you,
I can't put in words,
language won't hold
my desire.

Words are like prodigies. They may want to stay inside where it is safe and warm but they'll never live if they never play outside...and find themselves lost in the cold.

mortar my words
with particles
prepositions
adverbs
and conjunctions

Rotor is a fine palindrome, thought Frank Leigh Dearie as he ambled down the Lost Highway.

»Therefore« is a word the poet must not know.

(Andre Gide)

Words beginning with the »sn« sound in English are often unpleasant: snide, snob, snigger, sneer, snicker, snub, snert, snotty, snippy, snit, snarl, snore, sneak, snag. »Snow« is a word over which there is debate and even an annual change of heart. The first snowfall is almost always welcomed. Christmas snow is considered magical. But too much of a good thing for too long and March blizzards push »snow« into line with the rest of the »sn« words.