By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
THERE are just some words which are downright sexy. Not sexy in the sense that they connote physical urges, but sexy in that they capture your fancy and induce obsession. There are words which are just supple, with the sound they make, even if you have no idea what they mean.
I’ve had that kind of relationship with words for a while now. In the middle of reading or listening, I will encounter a word, familiar or unfamiliar, what I can’t quite forget. Often it is a word derived from foreign languages, but sometimes, it’s just a damn sexy word. A consonant flashes like a glimpse of an impossibly long, graceful leg. The curve of a surprise vowel is like a momentary image of a flawless neck. Some words stun even from afar, their very silhouette evoking desire.
One word I remember obsessing about for a while was “fusillade.” I fell for this word the very first time I read it. It means, according to the ever-dependable The New Oxford Dictionary of English, it’s “a series of shots fired or missiles all thrown at the same time or in quick succession.” I would often slip it into whatever I was writing at the time; it was harder to use in conversation since it was French and I didn’t actually know how to pronounce it. I do now: it’s fju:zi’leid.
I’ve had dalliances with other such words. “Gadabout,” for example. There were also brief flings with “unequivocal,” as well as “ersatz” and the voluptuous “inexorable.” There’s “erstwhile” and “antediluvian,” as well as “eponymous” and “harbinger.”
Right now, my current word of the moment is “fungible.” I have never had the occasion to actually use this word, in either conversation or writing. For the longest time, it’s very sound entranced me, even as I wondered to its meaning through amateur etymology. Does it have anything to do with fungi? Of course, the Oxford says it’s “able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.” Still, it’s a sexy word. I’ll figure out how to use it later.
Meanwhile, have you met “lackadaisical?”
Read about Pornography and other expressions of lust in the November 2, 2008 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.
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