It is delightful to discover words in other languages that do not exist in your own language. I found a collection of untranslatable words in this Medium article that first introduced me to the word komorebi 7 years ago. I immediately fell in love with the word that is used to describe sunlight being filtered through the trees or “the interplay between the light and the leaves”. It has a sense of discovery in it. There can be all sort of reasons for a word existing or not existing in a language, but that is not my point. I am just charmed by a word that can teach us to open our eyes and minds to beauty everywhere. Soon I was noticing komorebi all the time when out walking. When I visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum a few years ago, I realised that Bessie MacNicol, one of the Arts…
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Two people shared this great link with me, and I made some technical editors happy by sharing it with them. Now I will share it here! Listen to Erin McKean talk about the dictionary in a presentation from TED. Yes, she talks about the dictionary and where it is headed – or not. It is hilarious and fun and full of ideas to ponder. She never flinches at new words the way technical writers can (when marketing turns a noun into a verb)! 🙂 I don’t think she would be offended if she saw how my 10-centimeter thick Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (Unabridged) raises my monitor on my desk. She’s probably think that was extremely practical. She loves books, as she declares in the video, but the inside is what is so exciting and dynamic that it may no longer fit the form that we are familiar with today.…
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