Good words to you.

I'm a bit of a word geek. I think that's fairly obvious. I also take great pains when choosing the words (for the most part) that I say out loud. This is in an attempt to speak as clearly as possible while vesting my word choices with meaning that is often beyond the obvious. As one can imagine this causes problems from time to time when I get all frustrated that someone didn't pick up on a subtle nuance I intended, when in fact I'm just being an idiot for assuming everyone will invest the time to perform a close reading on every stupid sentence that comes out of my mouth.

I do appreciate a good word discussion though. Oddly enough I usually get kind of bored by articles about words (like Word Court/Fugitives) since they are often written with an air of smug superiority rather than attempting to elicit the playful fun that I believe should accompany every good linguistic dissection. Why try to alienate people, right?

This is why I want to recommend what is quite possibly my absolute favorite podcast right now. I listen to quite a few 'casts and enjoy all of them, but NPR's generous digging through the archives of John Ciardi's On Words with John Ciardi is always a superior source of enjoyment for me. Here is a man whose love of words is palatable and infectious and will grab the attention of any listener no matter whether they be SNOOT or monosyllabic Neanderthal. Give it a listen here and judge for yourself but I am quite confident you will come to the same conclusion I have: Words are fun and John Ciardi is a man who knows how to have fun with words, and you don't have to be a word nerd to appreciate that.