Fascinating Words!

Aren't words wonderful? What starts off as a very dry read in the dictionary can become a descriptive sea of thoughts and ideas. One can read of a brown dog walking down the street, but can envision that "...[the liver-colored bird dog] was advancing at a snail's pace, but he was not playing or sniffing at foliage: he seemed dedicated to one course and motivated by an invisible force that was inching him toward us. We could see him shiver like a horse shedding flies; his jaw opened and shut; he was alist, but he was being pulled gradually toward us." (Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird) Your mind is just swimming with mental images, isn't it? (And as a side note, To Kill a Mockingbird is filled with them!)

I was reading a Kathy Reichs novel recently and ran across "beaucoup". It stopped me in my tracks. Hmmm... is this the same as the "boo-koo" I'd heard people say all my life - "that cost boo-koo bucks" or "there are boo-koo leaves to pick up"? So off to the dictionary I went to find out that, sure enough, it is the correct spelling of the word, but the pronunciation is actually the French \ˈbō-(ˌ)kü\. Interesting.

Which brings me to the Scrabble Dictionary. How many of us have been defeated by this little monster while playing what we thought was an honest game of online Scrabble? Where do those words COME from? Now I'll admit I have used a few of the suggestions my iPhone Scrabble teacher offers, but then I have to reach for Webster and find out what I just played. One such word, "elision" ended up giving me 70+ points. And had I not stumbled upon it, I would never have known that was what happened to "beaucoup", as an elision is the "omission, assimilation or slurring over of a vowel, syllable, etc., in pronunciation". Who knew?