What would make me love a word? It’s meaning, the sound of it, how it looks, perhaps the rhythm of it? It could even be my mood at the time. But perhaps it doesn’t matter, and I should just share these wonderful words with you:

Slander: How satisfying it is to say. It rolls on the tongue, always on the verge of the mouth, knocking on the roof as if in a warning before flying away with the second syllable. And on it flies, a sharp accusation. Admittedly, I didn’t know that this is what this word is until I looked it up to be able to write this post. It turned out to be one of my fears: Making lies about another person that ruin their relationships with other people and broader society. I don’t have much of a reputation aside for one of mild stupidity, but it is of utmost importance that no one has any reason to hate me. As of now, I am not strong enough even against the soft caress of the word, but I can love the softness and humour in even the worst situations, like how I can see the beauty in slander.

冬景色 (Japanese for a winter scene, or a view in winter)：I am very fond of this word, as its relatively simple, with the character 景 which is found in the character for shadow and 色 which means colour, subtly reflecting the shadows of trees and reflections of light in the heavy Japanese snow. A Japanese winter scene also has a special place in my heart, as when I see it, it is when I am there to ski, feeling, hearing as well as seeing the crispness of the particular coordinate in time and space. The perfection of this word comes with how it fits perfectly into a Haiku, which is exactly what my memories in winter scenes would move me to write.

Zygote: This word is the name given to our very beginnings, a small cluster of daughter stem cells from a mother egg. Looking at a  zygote, one is thrown into the debate of when such a group of cells become a life, and then a conscious life, and then a human. However different we may be even among a species, among the animal world, we were all a cluster of cells, at the very beginning, merely a  surprising sound. This surprising beginning then ties into another single syllable made out of 4 letters, like how 4 cells in a zygote make one thing individually and another collectively. Cells and a zygote, g, o, t, e, and “gote”, and who knows, maybe it will be a goat.

Vulpine: With a harsh beginning and sudden ending, and a smooth yet slightly exotic middle, this word sounds exactly as it means: Like a fox. Even the sharp angle of the V is reminiscent of a fox’s handsome profile. And perhaps maybe even the foxes would appreciate, the logical drawing of the word from the meaning, as well as a handy suffix. What a perfect compartmentalisation of an idea that is, on closer inspection, incredibly vague. This word doesn’t indicate what it means to be “like a fox”. Is it a cruel, nasty existence, with the guttural V, or is it smooth with mystery like the meting syllables? Perhaps the word is meant to be like this, cloaked in as much mystery and ambiguity to the layman as its namesake.