Thursday, June 12, 2014

Logophile or Verbomaniac

So is there a word to describe my fascination of words?? (Rather circular reasoning, I agree.)
What I found:
A person who loves words and their meaning and usage is called a logophile. This is not to be confused with a person who studies words and their origin called an etymologist. The term 'wordsmith' can be used for someone who uses words to create feelings or ideas.
http://www.ask.com/question/what-do-you-call-a-person-who-loves-words

Someone who loves words is called a logophile. Despite there being quite a
few of us word-lovers, logophile is not common enough to find its way into
most dictionaries. Logophile comes from two Greek roots--logos, meaning
"speech, word, reason" and philos, meaning "dear, friendly"--and these
roots have also played a part in other more common English words.
Logos is part of the history of the words analogous, apology, and
logic. And philos gave us the noun combining form -phile, meaning
"someone who likes something very much." In a dictionary like
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, you'll find many technical words
that use this combining form. In this dictionary, just a handful of "-phile"
words are common enough to gain entry, among them bibliophile and
technophile.
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/what-s-someone-who-loves-words-called
There are many people who love words (logophile), they love the correct usage of various words in communication. When they become a devotee or well-informed student of the knowledge of words they may be refered to as a "word buff". An expert in the use of words is called a wordsmith. When there is obsession with words this condition or state is refered to as verbomania. But to call someone a "verbomaniac" instead of a "word buff" or "wordsmith" it probably takes one to know one. 
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100531191400AAFeUtE

Not being good enough to call myself a "word buff", just on the edge of etymologist, and certainly not claiming to be an expert so as to be a "wordsmith", I'll settle with logophile and at times a verbomaniac (which sounds, however, that it's only verbs that interest me....).  And if you've read this far, then which are you??

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