Here’s a squib about a book that doesn’t have anything to do with Web writing, but I think you’ll find it interesting anyway–and if not that, quirky and weird.
This is from the BBC’s news site about the book Eunoia...
Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels–and it means “beautiful thinking.” It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok’s book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel. Mr Bok believes his book proves that each vowel has its own personality, and demonstrates the flexibility of the English language.
…and here’s an excerpt from the book:
“Loops on bold fonts now form lots of words for books. Books form cocoons of comfort – tombs to hold bookworms. Profs from Oxford show frosh who do post-docs how to gloss works of Wordsworth. Dons who work for proctors or provosts do not fob off school to work on crosswords, nor do dons go off to dorm rooms to loll on cots. Dons go crosstown to look for bookshops known to stock lots of top-notch goods: cookbooks, workbooks – room on room of how-to-books for jocks (how to jog, how to box), books on pro sports: golf or polo. Old colophons on schoolbooks from schoolrooms sport two sorts of logo: oblong whorls, rococo scrolls – both on worn morocco.”
I looked up “eunoia” (which I guess is pronounced yoo-noy-ya) on a couple of dictionary sites. It’s apparently a little-used medical term meaning “normal mental health.” Aristotle used the word to refer to “the kind and benevolent feelings of goodwill a spouse has that form the basis for the ethical foundation of human life.” That’s from Wikipedia. Elsewhere, a philosopher writes Socrates used the word to mean “a community of pleasure and pain.”
It’s a good word to keep in your back pocket the next time you play Scrabble!
