It's a well known fact that English, which has one of the largest vocabularies of any language, is complicated and difficult to master. Supposedly, your average college grad has a vocab of approximatley 20,000 words. It's impossible to factually state the amount of words in the English language, but I'm sure it numbers in the 100,000's. Every time I check my e- mail, I see proof of the fact that perhaps we could pare the list down a bit. The word of the day on my homepage is usually something only a professional scrabble player or Frasier Crane would need. Speaking of Frasier, the other day I learned he was an inkhorn; ostentatiously learned. If he was looking for romance he might ask his date if she cared to osculate. ( hey, get that mind out of the gutter..)It means the touching of one curve to another, or kissing. Frasier Crane might be too high and mighty to use hypocorism on his new girl. Most of us average intellects are loathe to admit that we have been guilty of it at one time when we nauseatingly called our new love honeybunny or mookie. Maybe you've guessed that hypocorism is the use of baby talk. I really can't think of any occasion where I would use most "words of the day" from Dictionary.com. though it's a fun and diverting (got that from theosaurus.com) place to browse. I, the artist, picked up this quote there. I don't know if I totally agree with it, but it makes a darn good excuse for my crappy vocabulary.
"I have always suspected that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is a boon to people who don't have deep feelings; their pleasure comes from what they know about things, and their pride from showing off what they know. But this only emphasizes the difference between the artist and the scholar."
This illustration was done using an ink bottle,not an inkhorn, a croquil pen and the technique of stippling(a technique involving shading through the use of small dots) over watercolor. Excuse the nudity..it's from my student days!
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