1351 Wonderful Words

Words are so cool. I love the way they can convey so much, and often on so many different levels than what you get on the surface.
Take the word workaholic. It’s a made up word. Derived from alcoholic. On the surface, it means someone who is addicted to work. How can they tell? Maybe the person is addicted to the money he or she gets from work. But we don’t hear of coinoholics or dollaholics.
Still, “workaholic” has a nice ring and cadence to it. And it makes it easy to say that when you have a vacation for a workaholic it’s a workaholiday.
Or take the word dud. Dud is almost onomatopoetic. One of those words that sound like what it describes, like sssssnake or buzz, or yogurt. A dud is a disappointment. Or something that fails to ignite. Or something that just plain fails. So why would you name a candy you wanted to have succeed and make lots of money off of, “milk duds”?
Yeah, I’m eating a dud.
Sounds so appetizing.
Some words raise expectations. “3-D” is like that. I don’t even know if 3-D is properly a word. But since it conveys meaning I suppose we’ll have to let it in. When you hear 3-D you expect some new technology that jumps out at you.
And like the colorizing binge of the 80s, when Ted Turner said he was going to use technology to remake all the old black and white pictures, you hear now that they’re thinking of doing the same thing with the 2-D back log.
I don’t know. I’m not really ready for Bridges of Madison County 3-D. Somehow the story of a horny cornhusker and a rutting shutterbug is better described with the word “two-dimensional.”
America, ya gotta love it.