Not entirely surprisingly, perhaps (after all, I have chosen to write a blog), I love language.  I love it for both what it can convey and what it can evoke.  I love a well-turned phrase and word play, or what you might call, linguistic whimsy – one of my favourite words, that, whimsy – and yes, I love those too, words.  Words, words, words.  So many words, so little time (not to mention available head space in which to store them).  To help overcome that last, I’ve created this page as a depository for the words, phrases and quotes that have caught my eye and turned by head…

I was thrilled to discover recently that one of my all-time favourite things – the delicious smell produced by a sudden shower of rain falling on ground that hasn’t seen any in a while – has a name: petrichor.  I can’t for the life of me remember where I came across it (unusually for me), but it was certainly online, as it’s obvious that I copied and pasted it into the notes app on my phone rather than typed it.  A quick Google and up pops Wikipedia to tell me that petrichor is a relatively new word – only nine years older than me, in fact.  Wiki goes on to say that it was coined (so pleasing that we borrow from the lexicon of the mint when we talk about creating new words and phrases, language being a currency itself) by two researchers, Isabel Joy Bear (and isn’t that a great name?) and Roderick G. Thomas in 1964.  The etymology of the word is as poetic as the thing itself, coming from petra – the Greek word for ‘stone’ – and ichor, which I now know is the ‘fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.’  (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor)  Still a little early in the year for petrichor, but I look forward to smelling it again soon.