Words I love

After some conversations I've been having with the beau, who is a lover of lexicon, I thought I might jot down some words that I love. Just for the sake of posterity.

Here they are. No order.

• Sisyphean
• mondegreen
• ephemeral
• lackadaisical
• onomatopoeia
• forlorn
• pining
• quixotic
• azure
• diaphanous
• languorous
• vernacular

There's a million more than that, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

I also just finished reading Essays in Love by Alain de Botton. I honestly can't recommend this book highly enough. The language was beautiful, weaving between analytical and emotive voices; empathising whilst rationalising emotions using philosophy and historical context.

It had some interesting ideas in there too. For example, at one point in the book (and I'll try not to spoil it) he discusses how breakups are often characterised using moral language. As in the person who rejects is 'bad' or 'wrong' for not loving, and the person who is rejected is the embodiment of 'good'. He then refutes the use of moral language with the following Kantian quote:

For any action to be morally good, it is not enough that it should conform to the moral law - it must also be done for the sake of the moral law.

Thus actions performed as a result of disposition (i.e., how you would behave normally) aren't actually moral, even if the action could otherwise be considered moral. So in the example of the breakup, the person who is rejected would probably be considered 'good' for such unselfish loving, however this person would have loved regardless of whether they considered it moral or otherwise.

Loved the book anyway. There's a lot of interesting messages in there, and virtually every sentence is either profound, witty, playful, or enlightening.