Jan10

word nerd.

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artist: graham gillmore, ploy. 

now this is a holiday made for me! i love words of all kinds and am a proud word nerd.

We celebrate National Word Nerd Day on January 9, (missed it by one day),  by enthusing about our favorite words and the importance of language in our culture. Whether you always know what to say, or you often end up with your foot in your mouth, words are essential to our success and progress. National Word Nerd Day gives us the chance to learn some new words, use some old ones, and maybe even borrow them from someone else!

HISTORY OF NATIONAL WORD NERD DAY

Humans have communicated since we first walked on Earth, though our early language was nowhere near as complex as the systems of words we use today. Once, our basic vocabulary range was no different from that of great apes, but as we advanced, so did our language.

With developments in our lifestyle, we needed to be able to name things, communicate ideas, and express ourselves to aid our advancement. Words and language became increasingly important, yet it took many centuries until they were considered important enough to document.

During the medieval period, the written word was considered a luxury, with only the rich or the anointed able to read and write in a sophisticated way. As such, the majority was only able to enjoy words through oral storytelling. Shakespeare and other great wordsmiths used their love of words to delight audiences in the theatres, even inventing words for use in their work.

But by the mid-18th century, reading and writing were more widely taught and accessible to a greater range of people. It became necessary to produce a comprehensive list of words and their meanings in the English language, a task embarked upon by Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was paid the sum of 1,500 guineas (approximately $325,000 in today’s money) for its completion. After seven years of toil, his dictionary was published in 1755 and is still widely regarded as one of the most influential texts of the English language.

Today, we celebrate National Word Nerd Day to mark the importance of words in our history and civilization, giving us an excuse to geek out on our favorites!

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79 responses »


  24. oh, how i wish we had such a wonderful day in our ‚language‘…. I‘m the ultimate word nerd and having married a French spoken Swiss to my Swiss German upbringing, having spent time in Canada, England and France, loving holidaying in Italy, Portugal etc all only have helped to broaden and deepen my love for languages and words.

    As I said above, I detected the Covid bonus game Wordle and i just quickly had to fill it in for today. It was sort of a bummer. It started well and then…. I send you the development by email! You‘ll laugh….

    Here one totally randomly chosen image I posted on Flickr a loooong time ago. Seeing very little my days of great work on that site are over but i treasure what i did then and love going back to the one or other photo upload. Again, what i liked best, was the comments made and some of those friendships developed and stayed until now.

    Read on http://www.flickr.com/photos/vol-au-vent/14335868063/

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