Certain words beautifully sum up their own characteristics. They don’t require any extra adjectives to be wonderfully descriptive and evocative, and through their use it becomes possible to manipulate the emotions of others — usually in a negative manner.

Take the word “pus” for example. Even if you’re unaware of what pus actually is, simply expectorating that word sounds unpleasant — there’s no real need to add adjectives such as “oozing”, “bubbling”, “dribbling” or the like (though they help) in order to make it absolutely clear that the word you’re talking about is an unpleasant thing.

Ditto for “sputum”. In fact, it can be said for most bodily fluids — urine, sperm, mucus, bile and all manner of others. Part of this can perhaps be attributed to the fact that some of these words have alternate meanings — “bile” in particular is one which is bandied around somewhat, particularly when referring to unfair criticism.

Thinking of all these disgusting words, it actually becomes somewhat difficult to think of more pleasant ones which work in quite such a powerful manner. Bodily fluids are right out the window, obviously (not literally… hopefully), since none of those are especially pleasant. “Effervescent” is quite a nice word, though not many people remember what it means, even when looking at packets of Solpadeine.

Somewhere between the positive and negative camps is the word “rich”. Whenever I hear the word “rich” either in the context of food or pretentious discussion of “content”, I think of chocolate cake. This is obviously a positive connotation (assuming you like chocolate cake) but is clearly somewhat inappropriate when contemplating a website with a “rich content strategy” or a “rich interface” or whatever bollocks the marketers are spouting this week. But a big sticky slice of chocolate cake is often described as having a “rich” flavour, and hopefully not being filled with pus or anything like that. There, put you right off now, didn’t I?

Words are powerful, crafty little things. Obviously my experience with them lies in English. I often wonder if other languages are as rich — there’s that word again — in associations and imagery. German, for example, is a very literal language (the German word for bra literally means “breast-stopper”, for example) and due to its habit of capitalising all nouns, not just proper ones, often looks like it’s being a lot more formal than it actually is. It’d be like writing that you were going to the Shops with some Friends to buy some Bread and Milk. All wrong — to us anyway.

There was a point somewhere in all this but I’m feeling somewhat sleepy as we’ve spent the weekend putting a new bed together and installing a freezer. So I will be bidding you good night now, and joining the Americans in having a pleasant day off for Labor (yes, Labor — I’m an honorary American so far as public holidays are concerned) Day tomorrow.

Try not to ooze any pus onto the sheets.