Words that make the mouth happy

I found this pleasingly sesquipedalian list of 22 words that are fun to say:

  1. Onomatopoeia
  2. Cacology
  3. Nuance
  4. Undulate
  5. Symposium
  6. Loquacious
  7. Facetious
  8. Phlebotomist
  9. Superfluous
  10. Trabajabamos
  11. Nefarious
  12. Abominable
  13. Discombobulate
  14. Disingenuous
  15. Lackadaisical
  16. Archipelago
  17. Guacamole
  18. Avocado
  19. Oblivion
  20. Usurp
  21. Plethora
  22. Shank

I think I’d add “gerbil.”

Have any favorites?

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Category: Language

27 Responses

  1. 1
    jooooooossh says:

    juxtaposition!

  2. 2
  3. 3
    puremotif says:

    wow…. saying those all outloud truly did make my mouth happy. I think my favorite is Loquacious or maybe Cacology. But superfluous also feels great.

  4. 4
    robyn says:

    My favorite is loquacious and my least favorite is undulate. I find that one kind of unpleasant to say.

    what the heck is Trabajabamos??

  5. 5

    Trabajabamos is Spanish for “working,” I think.

    Apparently it’s so exceedingly wonderful to utter that it made it onto an English word list.

  6. 6
    Jenny says:

    I love that you love my list!

    And for the curious, “trabajabamos” actually means “We were working” and is pronounced “tra-bah-hah-bah-mos”.

    To conjugate a regular “-ar” Spanish verb to the imperfect tebse, you add “-abamos”.

    And that ends my exceedingly annoying Spanish lesson for the day!

  7. 7
    Jason Pauli says:

    “chicanery” all the way

  8. 8
    Molly says:

    i love the word archipelago–maybe we should move to one, just so i can say that all the time.

  9. 9
    danielle says:

    if you want to see dave pee his pants, just say a sentence with these words: fluff, blimp, plump, and eleven.

  10. 10
    Mike Tong says:

    Jenny- keep the Spanish lessons coming!

  11. 11
    Stacey says:

    I use #21 ALL the time…..too much actually. I think it is getting old already. I am over it…….won’t be using it anymore. Instead I will use guacamole……..I know they don’t mean the same thing, BUT it will make people stop and think.

  12. 12
    matt says:

    Tolkien believed that ‘cellar door’ was the most beautiful sounding word (er, words) in the English language.

    Can’t you just imagine an elf named ‘Selardor’? :-)

  13. 13
    Frank Turk says:

    “pants”
    “pecadillo”
    “http://centuri0n.blogspot.com”
    and the way my kids call all medicine from the Doctor which comes in large pills “monster-cilin”.

  14. 14
  15. 15
    lyndaspix says:

    My hubby likes sports. His favorite word (name) is Ladanian…Ladanian Tomlinson…it just rolls off the tongue.

  16. 16
    Cara Herzberg says:

    Currently, Joe’s is nexna = Wolof for “it’s good” but you gotta say it in your throat.

    Mine is toppotal = also Wolof meaning “to raise or take care of.” People usually tell me I take good care of my husband, because he is always saying nexna.

  17. 17
    jenna says:

    all the ugandan words i’ve heard…or sung
    halala ngojesu…
    love it…

  18. 18
    jenna says:

    oh. one more.
    “frnt”
    it’s what my boys think other kids are saying, when they are in fact saying “fart”.
    “frnt”
    i can’t get over it.

  19. 19
    Bryan says:

    Wasps -say it aloud!

  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
    grrrarrrg says:

    My favorite word ever is # 13!

  23. 23
    Kristin Tabb says:

    What makes many words fun to say is if you can add “arella” (*for the feminine) or “inator” (for the masculine) to the end of it:

    gerbil become “gerbarella” and “gerbinator”

    Someone already commented on Ugandan words, so I’ll add these two, because after I finally learned how to pronounce them correctly I couldn’t stop saying them:

    “Wowzima Wamilele”
    (Wow-zi-ma, Wah-me-lay-lay)

    It means “Forever and ever” and the faster you say it the more fun it is.

  24. 24
    Jeff says:

    word on ‘gerbil’ !

    ‘hamster’ is a favorite since a kid

    how about ‘ridiculous’?

    I think I like it so much because as a kid I couldn’t say r’s unless the word started with it and it a was short saying, like a one word sentence … Ridiculous!

  25. 25
    Scott E. says:

    I like this two-word combination: cellar door. that just pleases me so. and of course singing these words makes everyone happy (just the words ya know)

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgi2DkDbPU]

  26. 26
    Mom says:

    Serendipity–both the meaning and the fun saying the word itself

  27. 27
    Jeff says:

    I asked my students about this … in addition to really liking ‘gerbil’ they added:
    ‘garbanzo’
    and
    ‘beluga’
    :-)

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