My new favorite phrase is “magnanimous as Agamemnon” – although one has very few chances to say this unless one is playing Fluellen in Henry V.
(Speaking of fun phrases to say that occur in Henry V, “Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester” is also fun to say. Actually, most English place names are, now that I think of it…)
Lately my favourite word has been crepuscular. No idea why.
And I’ve always been astonished that the English language can contain words that sound as different from each other as sleep and clock. I mean, think about it. Sleep is this long, drawn out sound, soft, with a little sibilance at the start. And clock is this short, abrupt little sound, hard all the way through, practically.
My old favorite phrase is “like proud Achilles sulking in his tent”. There are surprisingly few times when this phrase seems appropriate, though. This phrase replaces “Damn your sir, damn your eyes”, which in turn replaces “You go too far, sir, too far by half”, and indeed every phrase that implies too much by 50% (e.g. “too clever by half”).
Are proper names allowed? Because I really like to say “Cullowhee”, which is the name of the little town where I went to college. “Cullowheeeeee” – see, it’s fun!
Smock made me think of grommet. Grommet grommet grommet. Man that’s fun!
And now, a story. Back in my sophomore year of college I took a class called Voice For the Actor. One of our assignments was to compose a list of “delicious” words, like this thread, meaning words you like to say or like how they roll off the tongue. There was an older woman in the class, Ramona, who was not quite right. She never quite understood what was going on, and we all suspected she might be homeless because of the way she dressed. Anyway, we get to the due date of the assignment and we’re going around the room sharing our lists. We get to Ramona and she begins reading: “apples, pears, hot chocolate, peaches, plums…” Our professor stops her. Yeah, Ramona took the ‘delicious’ aspect all too literally. We all had to keep from laughing.
The Illinois women’s basketball team recently had a player named Aminata Yanni, whose name lends itself to being vocalized to the tune of that Mah Na Mah Na ditty.
I once worked with someone who got the biggest kick of saying “brouhaha” in a cackling, about-to-crack-open-a-cold-one tone.
“Shock and awe”. I watched the attack on Baghdad live, and it didn’t really look shocking or awesome; but it’s fun to say fast. “Shockenaw!” “Shocknaw!” “Leonard James Shockenaw!”
