When I was in second year high, I came across a book that promised to increase my English word power in just one month. Its title said so itself:
30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary. This come-on was irresistible, for in those days the English language still held much fascination for me (it still does, but in a different wavelength now). I thus bought the book with the certainty that it would initiate me into something magical. It did, for it started me on a love affair with the English language that continues to this day.
The book thus joined my admittedly very limited reference collection at the time—just paperback copies of
Webster’s Dictionary and
Roget’s Thesaurus—and it quickly established itself as the star of the troika. When my father, an elementary school head teacher, got himself a subscription to the Reader’s Digest, the book strengthened its primacy in my mind even more. For in every issue of that magazine, the caricature of Wilfred Funk’s smiling face would show up in a regular section called “Increase Your Word Power.” I always looked forward to taking those mini-tests of his on English vocabulary. Whether I made good on them or not didn’t matter. It was happiness enough that each time, I could firm up my grasp of yet a few more strange English words and make them mine to keep.
It was only much later that I paid closer attention to the book’s author—Dr. Wilfred J. Funk, a poet, an accomplished lexicographer, and president of the publishing house Funk & Wagnalls, Inc. Aside from his works for the popular market, he had authored the definitive
Word Origins: An Exploration and History of Words and Language. and likewise definitive, the
Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia.
That Dr. Funk’s book greatly helped me widen my English vocabulary would be an understatement. It set my mind on fire! And from the book I learned something even more important—
that one had to be conscious not only of the meaning but of the feel and the sound of words. If you were to ask me now, in fact, I would say that this awareness of the texture of words is what makes the difference between good prose and bad ones.
The good writer first feels a word for its heft or weight, quietly lets it roll and slide on his tongue, and listens to its sound with his inner ear; those that do not meet the grade for meaning and tonality, he discards without hesitation. The novice or bad writer simply rummages through his musty storehouse of words and picks up whatever happens to fall on his lap; the result is often banal, obtuse, uninteresting prose.
Dr. Funk likewise introduced me to the idea of
euphony—that there are beautiful words as opposed to ugly ones. Ugly words are those that twist your tongue and assail your ears when you enunciate them, such as “cacophony,” “gargoyle,” “phlegmatic,” and “treachery.” In pleasing contrast, Dr. Funk’s most beautiful words in the English language were these 10: “dawn,” “hush,” “lullaby,” “murmuring,” “tranquil,” “mist,” “luminous,” “chimes,” “golden,” and, “melody.” (Say each of these 10 words softly one at a time and you’ll discover why.)
Many years later I came upon a word that I thought was even more beautiful than any of those 10. That word was “chantilly,” the name of a lovely little town near Paris, after which was named the delicate kind of bobbin lace called “chantilly lace” and the flavored whipped creamed called “Chantilly.” How euphonic and magical the word “chantilly” is!
Now I think I know why “chantilly” didn’t make it to Dr. Funk’s top 10 most beautiful words. It isn’t English but French. The lexicographer in Dr. Funk must have prevailed as opposed to the romantic workings of my mind, which I admit couldn’t be as trustworthy in matters of this kind.
This essay is a condensation of an 814-word chapter that appeared in the author’s 2004 book English Plain and Simple: No-Nonsense Ways to Learn Today’s Global Language.”
Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in
The Manila Times:
The feel of English words(Next:
“Which,” “that,” and other grammar pitfalls) July 27, 2023
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
