I suppose everybody has their quirks. We all have those things which set us apart. Some people love a good equation, others a new pair of shoes. I love words. I love the way that they are born, evolve, grow and naturally die. I love the way that you can trace their family trees back through generations to a particular place, time and experience. I love those that make it into common usage and those which fell by the wayside. Every word tells us something about the thoughts and feelings of the people who coined it and used it. Sound, explosiveness, mouth-feel, vowel pattern speak about the history of our language and ourselves. Language is vocalised thought. Words are the history of thought. I could go on. I won’t

I will go back to quietly collecting the new and the archaic to the befuddlement of onlookers, cherishing my map of morphology and polishing the odd verb, because I am an unashamed word nerd.

And the best bit is, I get to use all of them and any of them at any time.

That is the definition of a writer

Word Herd