words, words, words

I have a confession to make: I love words.

I don't know if I love words because I'm a professional writer, or if I'm a professional writer because I love words, but I love them all the same.

Mind, I'm not talking about words such as "concupiscence" or "erudition." Those words are fine and I'll use them from time to time — well, except for concupiscence — but by and large people use such words more to show off than to communicate.

I love the little bits of history you find in words — such as "candidate" having a Latin root meaning "white" because Roman candidates for office were required to wear white togas — and I love the way some words just belong with their definitions because their sounds match perfectly.

As a journalist, I'm supposed to keep my wordsmithing fairly straightforward, but I can't help it. As soon as I can find a way to use the following words in the newspaper without risking a lawsuit, I'm going to use them:

Skulduggery. A word used for behavior considered underhanded or unscrupulous — now there's another fun word — "skulduggery" is one of my all-time favorites.

If the meaning alone isn't enough to convince you to add "skulduggery" to your vocabulary, consider how it rolls off your tongue. Skulduggery the sound and skulduggery the word go together like a duck and water.

Whenever I hear "skulduggery," I picture a grave robber unearthing someone's bones. The image is of someone who is absolutely at home with corruption — a perfect match between sound and meaning.

How can you not love a word with that sort of synergy?

Flibbertigibbet. I probably never would have learned this word if my wife hadn't made me watch Rodgers and Hammerstein' s "The Sound of Music" with her last year. It remains one of the few things I gained from the movie, which otherwise sucked nearly three hours out of my life.

"Flibbertigibbet" first arrived in English during the 15th century, some time after Geoffrey Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" but more than 100 years before William Shakespeare ever wrote his plays.

The word refers to a silly person, a linkage boosted by the rapidity of its syllables, its repetition of the I and B sounds, and the lack of any hard consonants. It's soft, it's simple and it evokes images of a featherbrain who doesn't know when to stop singing. Another perfect match.

Gerrymandering. Even though I've known this word since my social studies class in ninth grade, I've never had the chance to use it — not even last year, when New Jersey Republicans and Democrats were squabbling over how to carve the state's legislative districts.

Based on the name and practices of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusetts, "gerrymandering" is the act of establishing election districts that favor one political party at the expense of another, often by carving the districts into truly bizarre shapes. The "mander" part of the word comes from "salamander."

True, Gerry probably wanted to be remembered for other accomplishments during his governorship, but he still attained lasting fame of a sort. It's not everyone who has a legacy carved into the substance of a language like that.

Formicate. Part of the appeal of this word admittedly is that it sounds a little naughty, but the truth is that it's about as far from that other word as you can get.

Unlike "fornicate," which comes from the Latin word for a brothel, the root word of "formicate" is "formica," or "ant." "Formication" therefore is the sensation of ants walking across your skin, and has nothing to do with whether you're married.

If you formicate regularly, you probably are suffering severe hallucinations and will need extensive help getting rid of your delusory insects.

Embrangle. Even if you've never heard this word before — it dates back to 1664, and doesn't get much use right now — its definition should be easy to grasp. Try saying it, and you'll sense its meaning just by what it does to your tongue.

I first saw "embrangled" several years ago in an article in Time magazine. It refers to getting caught in a situation outside your control, or being embroiled in difficulty or conflict.

Omphaloskepsis. A nice, long word that means "the contemplation of one's navel." It's also a good description of what goes into writing about words you find interesting.