The Feel of a Word

I love collecting stones although it is a habit I have to curb if I am not to fill up the house and garden with things that have caught my eye.  I still have the two large pebbles from a Danish beach on my bedside table because I love their look and texture, and they remind me of the beach which was so different from our Australian beaches.

These pebbles have a certain feel. They can be rough in some places, smooth in others, have unexpected bumps and curves. I sense that their current shape is the result of a long history.

It is the same with words.  They acquire a patina over the years, a sense of how we as a community have regarded them at different points in our history, that is as important to our understanding and use of them as their solid meaning.

In these short essays that I will publish once a month I have tried to capture the feel of a number of Australianisms. I have explored the bumps and curves that these words have developed in their progress in Australian English that gives rise to the feel that they have for us today.