The Size of One's Lexicon...

penitentiary

I know there’s a certain honor to making the most of a minimalist’s narrow range of words and singly predicated sentences. Worked for Hemingway, I guess, though maybe it was all that syntactic and lexiconic* restraint that compelled him to shoot sharks with Tommy guns and risk the horns of bulls. Too much verbal retention, you know?

Me, I like big words and long sentences that fork off, double back, and bite themselves in the eye. Not all the time, of course: simplicity does sometimes say it best. But some ideas are too large for little sentences and too subtle for monosyllables. I like a word that keeps your tongue busy for a while, like sphygmomanometer or onomatopoeia. And yeah, all protests of “size doesn’t matter” notwithstanding, it kind of bugs me that Shakespeare’s vocabulary was probably bigger than mine.

Anyway...

Welcome to the online home of Thomas Bell (that's me): writer, speaker, radio commentator, and all-around word addict.

Within, you'll find some more information about me, clips of my work, recordings of my radio shows, language resources, and links to some of my favorite writers and publications. Enjoy your visit.

Oh, and send me your favorite long or unusual words. Pictures of them, too, if you have them. I'm collecting for the visual lexicon you'll see sampled throughout this site.

* Yes, I know you won’t find the word “lexiconic” in most lexicons. Guess irony isn’t dead after all. Or is that absurdity? Better look it up…