silence     love      family      violence      trust      anger

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These are my hot words.

Hot as in: not-grounded.

Hot as in: wires that can’t be touched without shock.

Hot as in: words I can’t use in a sentence.

Not if I want to demonstrate I know their meaning. Not if I want that sentence to hold their meanings solid and firm and without shifting. Not words like “askance” or “sartorial” or “genuflect”.

Try it. Have a conversation. Use one of these words. Use all of these words. Ask your conversation partners to use these words. Transcribe the conversation and read it back to yourself when you are alone.

Are you still so sure how you wield this language? What such words say and what they don’t? What they say and what they can’t?

Certain words are always cumbered by the death of meanings they fail to sustain.