Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

Last week, in a choice instance of logophile clickbait, the Guardian asked a handful of well-known writers to give a few words on their favorite words. The result was a little like asking a bunch of chefs to describe their preferred knives, or inviting a group of carpenters to talk about the merits of different saws: a joyful, voluptuous disquisition upon the specialist’s tools.

Here's a link to the original article in the Guardian:

From plitter to drabbletail: the words we love

Dialect terms such as yokeymajig or whiffle-whaffle; all-time favourites like cochineal, clot or eschew; antiquated phrases such as ‘playing the giddy ox’ … leading writers on the words they cherish.

The words:

1. Hilary Mantel: nesh
2. Andrew O’Hagan: clart
3. Will Self: pipe down!
4. Emma Healey: clot
5. Eimear McBride: yoke
6. Neel Mukherjee: tight slap
7. Robert Macfarlane: apophany
8. Taiye Selasi: chale
9. Sarah Hall: gloaming
10. Nick Laird: thrawn
11. Aminatta Forna: plitter
12. Paul Muldoon: slipe
13. Tessa Hadley: cochineal
14. Blake Morrison: whiffle-whaffle
15. Paul Kingsnorth: swamm
16. John Sutherland: widdershins
17. Nina Stibbe: fetlock