I Like Words

I am a verbal person.  I love exploring ideas while talking through them with others, letting ideas evolve while we brainstorm away in polite conversation.  And I freely admit to having conversations with myself...after all, conversing is one of life's most accessible pleasures.

Writing is simply another form of conversation:  it inspires us to think, consider, contemplate, and hopefully spark our own conversations - with ourselves, with people we know well, and with  completely new and interesting folks.  Words are powerful in any form.

I'm filling some of my newfound time and freedom learning a little more about words; digging into writing as a profession, what it takes to share ideas and inspiration on a mass scale through the written word. I'm certainly not proficient in how I conduct my research and a lot of the stuff I come across isn't really that interesting, but then I come across things like this cover letter, written in 1934 and mass-mailed to Hollywood executives. Check out what copywriter Robert Pirosh wrote, via Letters of Note, and see how it inspires you:

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh

385 Madison Avenue

Room 610

New York

Eldorado 5-6024