Mellifluous Logolatry and Logology: Words That Are Fun to Say

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Yvette Matthews and I’m from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Hi, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Yes, I was more interested in like the psychology behind saying certain words. Some words you say are so pleasurable to say and I was just more interested in why some words were more pleasurable to say than others.

Okay, well you’re going to have to tell us what those words are for you.

I teach biology, and so some of mine are very biological. So, like, my absolute favorite word to say is ovoviviparous. It’s an amazing phenomenon found in snakes where they’re egg-laying, but they don’t lay their eggs until they’re ready to hatch. So their eggs stay inside the female, and then she lays them. They never have a shell on them. So it gives me just such a warm feeling to say. Ovoviviparous.

Well, now tell us, do you like the mouthfeel of that word, or is it connected to that phenomenon that you were describing?

I mean, it’s a pretty cool thing to be ovo-viving.

Yeah.

I think it’s just the rhythm, saying that rhythm. It seems like the words that are the most pleasurable for me have sort of an innate rhythm to them, and they just sort of roll off the tongue, and they just make it pleasurable for me to say. So it could mean something else, and you would still go around saying ovoviviparous.

Yes, if I could. This pasta is ovoviviparous.

Yeah.

That’s definitely one of the characteristics of words that are fun to say, as you might guess with word people, because they tend to obsess. But there’s been some work done in looking into this, what makes words fun to say, and the natural rhythm in a word where the stress patterns follow a certain alternating rhythm. That tends to make words a little more fun to say. Stress on the first syllable tends to help. Rhyming or near rhyming. Alliteration helps. And reduplication, where there are multiple syllables in a row that are identical or nearly identical, tends to help.

This is why tongue twisters often meet a lot of this criteria, except for being the part where they’re easy to say. Of course, that’s why they’re fun to do, because they feel like they should be really fun to, you know, but they’re not quite there. Our instinct says they should be easy because they have these signals of something fun to say, but then they’re not.

So one tongue twister that some people think is really beautiful, but it’s very difficult to say, and even harder for non-native English speakers to understand is the sentence, Ted had said that Ed had edited it. But if you say it, Ted had said that Ed had edited it, it’s got a da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You know, it’s got a rhythm that really is kind of nice.

Yeah, well, you must run into a lot of those as a biologist.

Yeah, so my other fun word to say is a scientific word of a frog in Costa Rica, and it’s Leptodactylus pentadactylus. I only get to say it once a year, and it pleases me to no end to be able to say that the one time a year I talk about the frogs from Costa Rica.

Say it again.

Leptodactylus pentadactylus.

So it’s the smoky jungle frog. That’s very fun to say.

That has got rhythm.

Yeah.

That just feels nice. And it’s got the alternating very firm consonants, sharp consonants and vowels. That’s another thing that you find in stuff that’s fun to say, at least in English.

Well, Yvette, something tells me that we’re going to hear lots of words from lots of listeners who are sharing their own favorite sounding words or just words that they love to say. So we’re really glad that you shared this one with us, ovoviviparous.

Yes. What’s the frog word again?

Leptodactylus pentodactylus.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. This was so much fun.

All right, take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Well, maybe your word is bamboozle or wackadoo or rope-a-dope or squillion. Whatever your favorite word to say is, give us a call, 877-929-9673. Email it to words@waywordradio.org and attach a voice note from your phone, or tell us on Twitter and attach a video of you saying the word @wayword.