While the English language is filled with thousands of descriptive words, I have found that in my writing, I am drawn to a few that really make me smile. \u00a0Here\u00a0are a few of my particular favs:<\/p>\n
Boondoggle<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201cwork or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value\u201d; verb<\/em> \u2013 \u201cwaste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects.\u201d In my worlds, this is the official name for every doomed committee, cursed initiative, and grand crusade that was never going to work but looked great on parchment. It\u2019s the perfect label for quests designed to chew up heroes, shadow programs that exist only to hide darker truths, and those sprawling bureaucratic schemes that exist so the powerful can pretend they are doing something while the real story festers underneath.<\/span><\/p>\n Cacophony<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201ca harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.\u201d The word is a racket all by itself, all hard consonants and clanging vowels. It\u2019s perfect for describing riotous cities, chaotic battlefields, or a blast beat and screaming guitar solo colliding in a way that only a metalhead could possibly call beautiful.<\/p>\n Cattywampus<\/strong> \u2013 adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201cnot lined up or not arranged correctly, or diagonally.\u201d It sounds like a cartoon cat fell down the stairs, and that\u2019s meant as the highest compliment. It\u2019s the perfect word for crooked picture frames, listing porches, and backroads that refuse to run straight, and it somehow still squeezes itself into country songs without breaking the rhythm.<\/p>\n Ephemera<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201cthings that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.\u201d It\u2019s a pretty word for the detritus of memory: ticket stubs, flyers, brittle letters, the paper ghosts of a life. Ephemera is where stories hide after everyone stops paying attention.<\/p>\n Flesh<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201cthe soft substance consisting of muscle and fat that is found between the skin and bones of an animal or a human.\u201d It\u2019s a deeply uncomfortable word that shows up everywhere from horror novels to butcher shops. The bonus British verb meaning \u201cgive a hound or hawk a piece of the flesh of game that has been killed in order to incite it\u201d turns flesh into an ignition source, the thing you use to switch a predator on.<\/p>\n Gobbets<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201ca piece or lump of flesh, food, or other matter.\u201d It sounds almost innocent, like a children\u2019s book character, right up until you hang it off a dinosaur\u2019s teeth. The contrast between the cute, bouncy sound and the disgusting, dripping image is exactly why it works so well in horror, because it lulls you with its soft syllables before hitting you with the meat.<\/p>\n Grimoire<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201ca book of magic spells and invocations.\u201d It\u2019s heavier than it looks, as if the pages themselves are burdened with every bargain ever made in its margins. Even the word feels like leather and dust and whispered Latin, exactly the kind of volume you shouldn\u2019t open alone at night.<\/p>\n Hardscrabble<\/strong> \u2013 adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201cinvolving hard work and struggle.\u201d You can hear gravel in this one, feel the sting of busted knuckles and scraped knees on cobblestone. It\u2019s a single word that conjures entire childhoods of doing without, of scraping and clawing for every inch, which makes it a fantastic street name and a terrible place to actually pay a mortgage on.<\/p>\n Miasma<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201can oppressive or unpleasant atmosphere that surrounds or emanates from something.\u201d This is not just a smell, it\u2019s a presence, a clinging, invisible fog that gets in your hair and behind your eyes. It\u2019s equally at home describing cursed swamps, haunted basements, and the weaponized fragrance cloud of certain candle stores that shall remain nameless.<\/p>\n Prehensile<\/strong> \u2013 adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201ccapable of grasping or holding.\u201d It\u2019s usually reserved for tails, trunks, and strange, curling appendages that don\u2019t quite know when to let go. It\u2019s a word that feels like it\u2019s reaching out even as you say it, perfect for jungles, alien biologies, and the quiet horror of something in the dark that can touch you before you ever see it.<\/p>\n Rotgut<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> or adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201cpoor-quality and potentially toxic alcoholic liquor.\u201d It\u2019s one of those words that does exactly what it says on the tin, and you can feel it burning a hole in your insides just hearing it. It\u2019s so vivid that of course it ends up as the name of a video game and a punk band, because what else are you going to call something loud, rough, and bad for your health.<\/p>\n Scurrilous<\/strong> \u2013 adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201cmaking or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation.\u201d It feels slick and oily in the mouth, like the word is already up to no good while you\u2019re saying it. This is gossip with teeth, the vocabulary of tavern whispers, tabloid headlines, and characters who weaponize rumor the way other people wield knives.<\/p>\n Sinew<\/strong> \u2013 noun<\/em> \u2013 \u201ca piece of tough fibrous tissue uniting muscle to bone or bone to bone; a tendon or ligament.\u201d This is anatomical poetry, the word you use when you want the body to feel raw and real on the page. It pairs beautifully with things like gristle and tendon, all those chewy, resistant textures that make your prose feel like it has some muscle on it.<\/p>\n Thaumaturgical<\/strong> \u2013 adjective<\/em> \u2013 \u201crelating to the working of miracles or magic.\u201d It sounds clinical, almost bureaucratic, like someone tried to file sorcery under a manageable heading. It\u2019s what you call it when the ritual works, the machine awakens, and reality politely steps aside to let something else through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How about you? What are your favorite go-to words in conversation or print?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the English language is filled with thousands of descriptive words, I have found that in my writing, I am drawn to a few that really make me smile. \u00a0Here\u00a0are a few of my particular favs: Boondoggle \u2013 noun \u2013 \u201cwork or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value\u201d; […]<\/p>\n