Category Archives: Words

Your favorite word

words

WORDS. Writers love ’em. And what power they have. Power to inspire, comfort, engage, infuriate. They can cause war. And bring peace.

Words refine our thinking. They give us pause to examine ourselves. They are the machinery that runs the enterprise of civilization.

Consider this: God spoke the world into being. Not a bad advertisement for the power of words.

Do you have a favorite word? I do. Mine is kinestatic. You won’t find it in the dictionary because it hasn’t made its way into popular usage. Yet. The word was coined by my husband several decades ago when he invented and patented an imaging device and named it the Kinestatic Charge Detector. (You can google it.)

Of course, I’m proud of Frank’s work, but I’m also amazed at the word he came up with. You see, kinestatic is an adjective describing something that is moving in one frame of reference, but at rest in another one.

Think of walking up a down escalator. Or running on a treadmill. In both cases, you’re moving in relation to the escalator or treadmill, but you’re still in relation to the surrounding area. That’s pretty interesting, but it gets better.

The word kinestatic describes so much more. Have you ever thought that you spent all day rushing around, but didn’t get anywhere? That’s a kind of kinestasis (using the noun here). How about climbing the corporate ladder, but never succeeding in accomplishing your goals? Same thing. You can probably come up with quite of few examples of kinestasis yourself. What a great word!

Do me a favor and post your favorite word or words below and let us know why you like them.