Anonymous asked: asterismos sounds like a cool word.. it is a noun right? could you expound through an example of its usage? does it imply an effect like, say, onomatopoeia?

“Behold, I have arrived!”

“You’re late. Can you come here and help us with this?”

“Truly I tell you, I will not.”

“Cut it out. You’re not important enough to preface all your sentences with asterismos.”

“Ow! Hey, you can’t hit me!”

“Behold, I just did.”

Behold, truly I tell you, and hey are all examples of asterismos. Asterismos, more broadly, is any word or phrase at the beginning of a phrase or sentence that doesn’t add to the meaning, but that tells the audience, “Hey, listen up”. It can also be pretty poetic, if you use the “marking with stars” meaning. So it is pretty neat!

guess the number of messages in my box and win a fabulous prize!

That’s my askbox title, if you haven’t seen. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a winner, meaning that nobody has been close. Big hint: If you guessed 0, you think way too highly of my message-management skills. (Another hint: I don’t actually have a prize. Or at least I haven’t thought about actually offering one. But the fun part is guessing, right?)

That said, I’m working this week so I’m super busy, but as soon as I get back to school I’ll take a day or two and try to clear out the box. So if you sent me something, I will get to it! Thanks for your patience.

mater—tua replied to your post: What is your most favorite word?

How do you feel about ‘moist’?

AUGH

Anonymous asked: What is your most favorite word, if not, your most favorite list of words?

I only post words on this blog that I like, of course, but I do tag my special favorites! Running Otherwordly has taught me a lot.

I’m fond of unceremoniously, I quite like quite, and I’ve secretly wanted a tattoo of sehnsucht ever since I posted it here. I love the sounds of silver, desert, resonance, rush, oceans, arrogance, riot, passion—and a hundred more, because words are about sound as well as meaning. There are so many lovely words in the world.

asdf;klj sorry I just have lots of word feels

Anonymous asked: The sanskrit phrase शुभ कामनाएँ really means something like blessings and 'I wish you well' etc. Its usually said when greeting someone for a festival and things like that. So it could sort of mean good luck. And its pronounced as shubh- kaam-na-yein (the last 'n' being only the nasal sound - sorry im a pronunciation nazi!)

Thank you, that was super helpful!

This means that I still don’t precisely know what “good luck” is in Sanskrit. So if you were hoping to—oh, I don’t know, get a tattoo or something—I would definitely double-check with a source that is not this blog, which is run by a person who unfortunately but definitely does not know Sanskrit.

(see this ask)