As an author, I love words. In fact, my family might call me a bit of a ‘word nerd.’

From subscribing to Dictionary.com ‘Word of the Day’ emails to looking up new-to-me words used in books, news articles or conversation, I’ve rarely met a word I didn’t like.

This week on X (formerly Twitter) I spotted and shared ‘quanked’, a Scottish word meaning ‘exhausted, faint, or done in.’

While I’m not faint, being on deadline with two books, Canadian tax season and various family matters has certainly led to feeling ‘exhausted and done in.’

And even the sound of ‘quanked’ rolling off my tongue (rhymes with ‘thanked’) makes me smile.

My life in words

As a child, the first unusual word I remember learning is ‘soporific’.

Immortalized in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, eating too much lettuce supposedly had a soporific effect on said bunnies, causing them to fall fast asleep.

Then there’s ‘crepuscular’, often used by Canadian author L.M. Montgomery (famous for Anne of Green Gables) to describe twilight.

An elderly relative called a common rainy-day accessory a ‘bumbershoot’, nineteenth century American slang for umbrella or parasol.

From the years I lived in England, one of my favourite words is ‘dodgy’ meaning ‘not to be trusted’, followed closely by ‘knackered,’ yet another word for exhausted or, in some contexts, broken.

Here in Canada, there’s ‘bunnyhug’, a hooded sweatshirt worn in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, and jambuster, a jelly or jam-filled doughnut popular in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario.

Why are words important?

First and foremost, words are how we communicate with each other.

However, the words we choose, whether spoken or in writing, are influenced by where we come from, how we see the world and how others see us.

And what do you call someone who likes words?

That’s a ‘logophile’.

There are multiple Reddit threads, Facebook groups and other communities devoted to words and wordplay so I’m not alone in finding them fascinating.

And the next time someone in my small town calls me or Floppy Ears ‘bud’?

I’ll accept it as a friendly greeting that’s part of the Canadian vernacular and directed to everyone indiscriminately.

Like me, Floppy Ears also looks rather ‘quanked’ here.

What about you?