Favourite words: Readers take their pick, from corybantic to shiffle

The request for favourite words brings in thoughtful and entertaining responses, from verstehen to doobry ferckin.

Naming your favourite word is a task easier set than achieved. Picture: Getty Images

The literary event of the week was Tuesday’s publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, the half-century-old book from which To Kill a Mockingbird was hatched. Geordie Williamson reviews the novel today. I had my say earlier in the week (I think it’s both a marvellous novel and a fascinating literary artefact), and if you missed that you can read it at www.theaustralian.com.au/arts.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their favourite words, following last week’s discussion. As always, the responses were thoughtful and entertaining. I was pleasantly surprised that there was little grumbling over my request for just a single word. Some took this plea for brevity admirably to heart. Corybantic, wrote Dianne Wallace, and that was all she wrote. The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary tells me this adjective means “wild, frenzied” and derives from the priests of Cybele, “who performed wild dances”. That sent me in search of Cybele, with whom I spent a pleasant 15 minutes or so. Aren’t words wonderful?

Louise Johnson certainly agrees. A favourite word, she says, strategically activating the indefinite article (“It’s impossible to nominate the preferred one’’) is apoplectic. “It seems onomatopoeic,’’ she suggests. “You requested only one word, but in case you don’t like apoplectic then I propose vituperative — for much the same reason.’’ I like both. And while our fingers have slipped from the crack in the damn wall, I’ll throw to Ian Abbott of West Leederville, WA, who says he loves the sound of words with qu- or kw-. “There are so many quirky words to pick: quinquereme (from a poem studied at primary school), quotidian, quiddity, query, quest, quokka, kwongan and quoll (the last three from Aboriginal languages).’’ Ian continues: “Alas, one rarely has the opportunity to deploy these words, but I did manage to use, in an unforced way, the word quincunx in one of my scientific publications.’’

Noting the single word restriction, regular correspondent Eric Marsh plumps for “one with both an interesting meaning and etymology’’: boustrophedon. Heexplains: “Writing from left to right and then from right to left in alternate lines. It’s from the Greek meaning as an ox turns in ploughing, from ‘bous’ (ox) + ‘strophos’ (turning).’’ Rob Chaston of Avalon Beach NSW kicks off with: “So enjoyed your article, thank you.’’ Well, thank you, Rob. He continues, “One of my favourites is sussuration. I remember my father telling me 60 years ago that reading involves two books: the one being read and a dictionary. Still good advice today.’’ I couldn’t agree more. When my 10-year-old asks me the meaning of a word I ask him to look it up in the dictionary, and also read the words before and after the one in question, as there might be a dazzler lurking on the edges.

Martin Leonard, an occasional contributor to these pages, declares that choosing a single word is easy. Easy is quite a nice word, now I think of it, with its many meanings, but the one Martin has in mind is verstehen. He elaborates that this word “is now seen as a concept and a method central to a rejection of positivistic social science (although Weber appeared to think that the two could be united). Verstehen refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor’s point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of your observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world human actors are not simply the product of the pulls and pushes of external forces. Individuals are seen to create the world by organising their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects.”

Time to introduce, not too pointedly I hope, Melanie Smith, who offers discombobulation. “Other words come and go,’’ she says, “but I think this has been my most enduring favourite word since first hearing it as a child. It’s one of those words which some people think is made up, but to my mind sounds exactly what it is describing, that is, well … discombobulation!’’

I think Harper Lee puts the verstehen concept a tad more succinctly in Mockingbird. I’m still in need of a breather, so thank you to Liz Polednik (“I am a creature of the outdoors and my favourite word is spindrift. It works for both water and snow. I can watch spindrift for hours as long as I’m wrapped up warm.’’) and Graeme Bond (“Skedaddle. Mark Twain material.’’) Continuing this economic roll, Lisa Roche of Fremantle offers quidnunc: “An inquisitive person, or as we’d say in Cork where I come from, a nosey bah …” While on personal traits, have Dorothy Heinrich and Jan Germain been comparing notes? Dorothy writes: “I’d like to share with readers a word which has remained in my memory since childhood. My mother would say it when referring to a person who used to live in our neighbourhood. Because I had heard it spoken by no one since, I assumed that it was just one of those words which Mum occasionally made up. I was leafing through my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary a few months ago when suddenly, there it was in black and white: slummocky.” The definition, she adds, is: slovenly, untidy. “The word certainly fits the image of the person to whom it was applied. Derogatory, but I like it. Slummocky just rolls off the tongue.”

Which lets us segue (a word I like a lot) to Jan, who writes: “My favourite word is the archaic slubberdegullion, meaning a dirty, slovenly person, a slob in other words.” Jan continues: “It sort of rolls off the tongue in a very satisfying way!”

Kitty Courtney of South Hobart takes us back to one of the writers in last week’s column. “My preferred word,” she writes, “is doobry ferckin.” This is akin, she explains, to Eimear McBride’s yoke. “A doobry ferckin is a name for something that you can’t recall yet you and others know what it is. As in: Pass me that doobry ferckin, or, that doobry ferckin suits you, or, don’t forget to get a doobry ferckin.” Julia Fry likes Geordie Williamson’s widdershins, and reminds us that Judith Wright uses it in her poem Bullocky, but adds her “latest favourite word’’ is sesquipedalian.

There are some rippers there. (I quite like ripper, and fondly recall the 1970s compilation rock/pop album series of that name, with its daring cover image of a woman’s derriere clad in torn denim shorts.) But the Golden Claw goes to writer James Martyn Joyce of Galway, Ireland (who Google assures me is real). “I enjoyed your article on favourite words,’’ he writes. “I seem to remember Seamus Heaney also using clart, but then Seamus had no shortage.“(What a wonderful way to put it.) “My own favourite,“ he continues, “is shiffle, which I learned from a work colleague. It means a lot of useless talk about something very minor which generates far too much by way of conversation. I think it’s much nicer than the more common ‘going on and on’ and conveys much the same by way of meaning.” When I emailed James Joyce (how could I resist?) to thank him for shiffle, he responded in endearing fashion: “I love shiffle and try to use it as often as possible (usually in the pub!).”

Some of you asked me to name my favourite word, which made me appreciate it’s a task easier set than achieved. There are many animal names I love: badger, bear, cheetah, crab, eagle, eel, hawk, jaguar, ocelot, otter, panther, wolverine … but most of all wolf. Indeed my fantasy nom de plume would be a bestial blend. So if you see a crime novel by Dr Otter Wolf reviewed here one day, feel free to harbour suspicions, especially if the notice is glowing.