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Idc if this makes me a cop Words give shape to experience like heat to clay. They make experience coherent and usable. The sincerest part of me believes that when you use a word to its truest function you glimpse the moment of its invention, making you feel something like a lost truth of the past.
Ex: decimate means to reduce something to a tenth of what it was, not to devastate or ruin
Also the best defense to talk fancy and beat the pretentious allegations
Feb 6, 2024
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For the wordcels, aspiring or otherwise:
“It makes sense: there was, and is, something remarkable about his 1828 dictionary, and the editions that followed in its line (the New and Revised 1847, the Unabridged 1864, the International 1890 and 1900, the New International 1909, the 1913, etc.). You can see why it became cliché to start a speech with ’Webster's defines X as...’: with his dictionary the definition that followed was actually likely to lend gravitas to your remarks, to sound so good, in fact, that it'd beat anything you could come up with on your own.
Take a simple word, like ’flash.’ In all the dictionaries I've ever known, I would have never looked up that word. I'd've had no reason to -- I already knew what it meant. But go look up "flash" in Webster's (the edition I'm using is the 1913). The first thing you'll notice is that the example sentences don't sound like they came out of a DMV training manual (’the lights started flashing’) -- they come from Milton and Shakespeare and Tennyson (’A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act’).
You'll find a sense of the word that is somehow more evocative than any you've seen. ’2. To convey as by a flash... as, to flash a message along the wires; to flash conviction on the mind.‘ In the juxtaposition of those two examples -- a message transmitted by wires; a feeling that comes suddenly to mind -- is a beautiful analogy, worth dwelling on, and savoring. Listen to that phrase: ’to flash conviction on the mind.‘ This is in a dictionary, for God's sake.
And, toward the bottom of the entry, as McPhee promised, is a usage note, explaining the fine differences in meaning between words in the penumbra of ’flash’:
‘... Flashing differs from exploding or disploding in not being accompanied with a loud report. To glisten, or glister, is to shine with a soft and fitful luster, as eyes suffused with tears, or flowers wet with dew.’”
Mar 10, 2025
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I love learning and using words that are fun to say. Like splendidly, zephyr, ubiquitous, or mendacious… I feel so cool
Nov 12, 2024
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I think looking up synonyms is a completely valid way to figure out how to express yourself. they can be more than just replacing your thoughts with inserted words, their definitions can be tools of inspiration. thesauruses and dictionaries, physical or online, are great!
intentionally compare what you're trying to express to the definitions. I find this helps clarify and streamline thoughts through deduction, especially when a word isn't quite what you're looking for. you not only naturally gain a better understanding of what you are trying to express, but I often find other paths of interest.
even when I find a word or phrase that resonates, I still continue to search through similar ones, explaining to myself why this specific word fills what others can't. example sentences in dictionaries are a great place for the context of words too!
when writing, or even in conversation, I'll just search "another word for [insert my own word or phrase]".
I think this whole process of searching, reading, and understanding helps those words and phrases stick with you, as you've created like, a whole I Spy process out of it. I also just love rewriting definitions in my own words.
Mar 13, 2025
Top Recs from @babyboybrida
this was the epitome of the Obama administration
Feb 19, 2024
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Not a rec but a trend I noticed in music.
In Hayes Code Hollywood (puritanical production mandates against things like sex, violence, swearing in movies), there were musical numbers that took otherwise innocuous songs and added eroti./BDSM undertones. we had “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The big dance sequence in Minnelli’s The Pirate, where a woman is transformed into a donkey/bunny(? I forget) on all fours (I think?) while Gene Kelly gyrates around her in tight, low cut leather (this is crystal clear).
Fast forward (I’m skipping many steps - an amateur at this sort of thing) to the late 2000s/early 2010s. The latent BDSM becomes more explicitly lyrical in songs Like “Bad Romance” and (obviously) “SM.” However, these songs have erotic purchase - they chart desire ( “ I want your revenge” “Chains and whips excite me”) without the context of the body. The instrument and the lyrics let the listener construct titillation/lust.
Then, in the latter 2010s, we get total assaults of the physical experience of pleasure in Songs like “WAP” artists like Cupcakke, etc. so explicit that they undermine eroticism. At the same time, there’s also artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, who wax about yearning in a mystical, spiritual fashion (that im sure Jia Tolentino wrote about somewhere).
still working out why, but I think this change speaks to how rabidly we want sensation (not contemplation) from art but also (bc we get most of our art electronicall) technology and (still Working this one out) religion?
i told my friend about this and he said, “Sex Positive Accelerationism.”
Feb 26, 2024
The following photos are examples. another instance which belongs only to memory: I was teaching kindergarten on the UES at a point in my life which seemed to have no point but one morning I was walking from 86th street where they have enormous lavish dogs who look like they have a 401k and the sun was coruscating like entire streets were orange and I strolled past this Platonic piece of dog shit that was sculpted like a soft serve and the shit had this gleaming halo from the sun and stopped and stared at it for like 5 minutes
This song from the legend of Zelda always plays when I see these: https://youtu.be/qtCWgWUhA8s?si=f13382M560HRzX6B
Feb 4, 2024