With nearly two hundred thousand words in the English language, there are often myriad words that are able to describe a thought.  Yet the precision of using the correct word is undeniably important as each carries a connotation that serves to deepen understanding and convey intrinsic specifics far beyond the surface definition.  Are you interested or are you enthralled?  Do you like this moment or do you cherish it?  Can you more perfectly imagine a sky that is very cloudy or a sky that is ominous?  I recently wrote a blog post at work describing how configuration settings were named in the database I help to support and the concept of precise wordsmithing was often discussed.

 

In writing that post, I recalled reading about words that existed in other languages but did not have an English counterpart making them, quite simply, untranslatable.  I was able to track down the post by Ella Frances Sanders and have included some of my favorites here; you can see the complete set on her page.  There’s something really beautiful about language and I love how I recognize all of these concepts and feelings but never knew I was missing a word to precisely describe them until now!  Language.  What a fascinating and intricately woven thing we’ve created.