Here are some words I like:
toile - (twoll) monochromatic prints with a repeating pattern. They look like engravings. If you were to visit some old fashioned country club, you might see a brown sketch on an upholstered chair depicting a father and son hunting. They're hunting a runaway slave. At least the word and idea are nice.
transubstantiation - This word is long. The church thought that by making it long, they could legitimize it. Those damn cannibalist catholics.
ptyalism - I had to take Latin classes in Junior High. My Latin teacher was this fat guy named Mr. King who wore coke bottle glasses. Everyone in the higher grades advised me to claim a seat in the back row. I soon found out why. On the first day of class he introduced himself: My name is Mr. King (he scratches it out on the blackboard)You will notice that I salivate more than most people. (spittle flies into the front row as he tries to enunciate) This is perfectly natural. I have a medical condition called ptyalism which means my glands produce too much saliva. What an introduction. If you sat in the front half of his classroom, you would get sprayed. If you saw him late in the day, you would see the stain running down his shirt from all the drooling. Even if this man were the world's foremost expert on the Latin language, I can't comprehend how he got any job allowing him to speak before an audience. Poor guy.
Mahometan - along with Mohammedan, one of the old, ignorant terms for "Muslim." I love the sound of it. It makes Islam sound like a cult, which is weird, because "Christian" doesn't make Christianity sound like a cult. My cultural heritage probably dictates this. Maybe there's a secret rule that your religion can only be named after a person if that person was a god. Prophets need not apply.
precis - (pray'-see) a concise summary. I prefer this academic term to its inferior counterparts - summary, report, abstract... speaking of, how did abstract adopt this usage? It reeks of faulty generalisation, while precis cuts like a knife.
fissure - It sounds dramatic, looks sexy, it is a king among words.
Here are some words I hate:
subrogate - to substitute one person for another in reference to a claim or right. I have run across this word in a few legal documents lately. Though simple enough in definition, "subrogate" is unnecessarily confusing because its usage follows no clear grammatical rules. In different legal statutes, I have seen "subrogate" coupled with two different prepositions: "to" and "for." Now, if we were to follow common grammatical sense, "Mike is subrogated to Enron" would mean "Mike is replaced by Enron in reference to this claim", while "Mike is subrogated for Enron" would mean "Mike replaces Enron in reference to this claim". The former construction essentially makes the verb passive, while the latter makes it active; one construction means the opposite of the other. However, legal experts choose to ignore this common-sense distinction and regularly use "is subrogated to" in place of "is subrogated for," adding to the obfuscation prevalent in legal statutes. Legal writing suffers from an obsession with esoteric grammar, an obsession which probably grew from a demand for clarity, but which has blossomed into an ungainly beast that devours clarity with pretentious teeth.
epicurean - this is a high society word meaning "particularly fond of or characterized by extravagance, luxury..." It could have a deeper meaning, a meaning that recognizes its heritage, a meaning that embraces a worthy philosophy and a worthy understanding of pleasure, but it has been adopted by a culture that prioritizes the pleasures of consumption. Epicurus did indeed teach that one should orient one's life to the pursuit of pleasure, but his understanding of pleasure was far more incisive and life-affirming than this hollow word would suggest. He suggested that before we seek pleasure in fulfilling our desires, we should analyse them and come to understand what they really mean in our lives: Of the desires, some are natural and necessary. Others are natural but unnecessary. And there are desires that are neither natural nor necessary The heart of his argument for engaging our desires philosophically is the idea that our instinct for happiness may often err. If we think a private jet and collosal mansion will satisfy our desires, we misunderstand happiness and pleasure. For Epicurus, friendship, freedom, and thought encompass all that is and can be happiness. He established a commune outside of Athens so that he and his friends would be free from the constraints and false desires of everyday society. They grew most of their own food and lived with few of the luxuries that life in Athens afforded. I imagine that most of them were happy. Four hundred years later, Diogenes commissioned a billboard in Rome to extoll the wisdom he had gained through Epicurus: ..Luxurious foods and drinks in no way produce freedom from harm and a healthy condition in the flesh.. One must regard wealth beyond what is natural as of no more use than water to a container that is full to overflowing.. Real value is generated not by theatres and baths and perfumes..but by natural science.. Let us reclaim "epicurean" and reclaim our understanding of our happiness.
