Word Geek

I love words, the make-up, the double entendre meanings. Words are fun to play with. I have a habit of collecting "word" book, i.e., dictionaries, usually at used book stores, sometimes new. Such as:

"A Dictionary of Naval Terms," "A Dictionary of Made-Up Languages". I have dictionaries of various languages, Latin, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Italian, etc., etc. I have mathematical, scientific, and I have a preference for older dictionaries, not newer ones. Words lost, words found. Words to play with, to alter, to re-use. Words are fun.

Thus, the newest addition to my "word geek" library is this one."The Handy Electrical Dictionary," a practical hand book of reference, containing definitions of every used electrical term or phrase. Indispensable to everyone interested in electrical science. With illustrations. Compiled and edited by W. L. Weber, M.E., copyright 1911 and 1902. Love it. A little guy that easily fits into the back pocket of a pair of work pants.

My current intriguing phrase from this book:

unbuilding of dynamo. The loss of its charge or excitation by a self-exciting dynamo.

and dynamo. a dynamo electric machine. A generator.

Take it from there.

Dynamo. Generator. Generator of what? Hmm. Well, taken literally, likely electricity. But what might I do with that when I play with words and meanings? Let me think on it.

One of the reasons I love writing dark fantasy and scifi. Sometimes I just play with letters in a word, moving them around and creating something different. Just like the fun of bending definition.

Such as, I might take dynamo electric machine and using the first letters of each word, I'd come up with the word Dem. Dem night be a social class, it might be a type of humanotic in the city -state of Quentopolis, it might be a process that they use at the Factorium. The unbuilding of dynamo might refer to a process that occurs in the Elite Logic Life Core - the ELLC, the knowledge machine at the core of Quentopolis.

I do love words and their meanings.