Dear friend,
Welcome to 'THE WORD', a fortnightly newsletter celebrating the very essence of a writer's toolkit: words.
Today's word is...
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'Easeful'
adjective
literary
providing comfort or peace
"life was easeful at that time"
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"I thought of sleep, how much I missed sleep. I thought how it was something I had never imagined about myself, that one day I would end up half in love with easeful sleep. Yes, see that? the unexpected word easeful slipping itself in like into a warm clean bed next to the word sleep. Easeful. It wasn't a straightforward word..."
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And it really isn't so easeful to say or use 'easeful' in a nice, non-clumsy way. It feels at first like a casual, over-pronounced slurp of 'easy' or 'easily', or could perhaps be mistaken for the more artful 'easel'?
On the printed page it's attractive enough, and requires only a subtle transition of sound over the tongue to form both halves of the word. If you pair it with 'transition' though, it becomes office-y, the kind of description you might find in a business report: "the transition into new software was easeful" (I bet it wasn't).
The irony of course is that Ali Smith has managed to segue it into her short story at least five times spanning two paragraphs. How easeful was that? Maybe it demands to be used multiple times in quick succession to make its impact easeful? (See what I did there - I'm up to eight now myself!)
But writing isn't always easeful. Life isn't always easeful. (I haven't written on my blog for a fortnight and it's not because I don't know what to write.)
Prior to today, I can honestly say I've never used the word 'easeful' in a poem, story or conversation, and because it doesn't easily spring to mind as an 'everyday' kind of word, I don't know if I ever will.
That's not the attitude I know; words are born equal and deserve to have their day (say?) on the page. It must be someone's favourite word?
With an interest in the stats on just how often this word does appear in books (or in articles and stories online), and discounting the dictionary and thesaurus for obvious reasons, a quick search reveals a book called 'Easeful Death'.
I think we'll leave it there.
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***Visual Wordery***
I've started a Pinterest board dedicated to WORDS:
words I've featured here, favourite words, foreign words...
Do you 'collect' fabulous words? Where do you keep them?
Check out my new board for inspiration & follow along
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Next week I'll be immersing in the history, words and creativity of the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, Lumb Bank on a writing and art retreat. I've been eager to take a course at the Arvon centre for a long time, and finally the stars have aligned with the right course at the right time.
I look forward to reporting back on my experiences, and wonder what lovely 'Northern' Yorkshire words (and accents) I'll hear as I head to deepest, darkest Heptonstall?
Thanks for reading. Remember to spread 'THE WORD' if you enjoyed this newsletter.
Yours (with ease)
Rebecca
PS. It would have been Ladislao José Biro's 117th birthday today. I thought you'd like to know. He invented the ballpoint pen.
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