I heart words. I heart them a lot. I heart them so much that some people have accused me of making up words, if you can believe it. But then, Bill the Bard was known for that, too, so I guess I'm in good company.

I belong to a couple of word-of-the-day lists, which often illuminate archaic and rarely heard words. One is sponsored through Merriam Webster, and another from A Word A Day.

Then there's The Word Spy, which is a site devoted to lexpionage, the "sleuthing of new words and phrases" that have been spotted in journals, the news, books, web sites and television, etc. Recent entires there have included:

adultescent (ad.ul.TES.unt) noun. A middle-aged person who continues to participate in and enjoy youth culture.

and

kipper acronym. An adult son or daughter, particularly one aged 30 or more, who still lives with his or her parents. —adj. From Kids in parents' pockets eroding retirement savings.

The development of our language is cool, and what's more, its rate of expansion can be kind of frightening. At least for some, who would defend its purity to their last breath.

But as James D. Nicoll said in 1990,

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

I have borrowed that description more than once.

See, as a writer, I heart all things lexical. One of the neatest word-related thingies (yes, that's the technical term) I've found recently is Word Web. I downloaded the free version, but one day I may need to upgrade. Basically, there's an icon on my toolbar which I click when I highlight a word I want to know the definition of, synonyms of, or related words, and a pop-up appears with all the facts, ma'am. It's pretty darned cool.

And so is language. Speaking of which, I have some writing to do.