A qualitative approach to interestingness.

When Dmitri Borgmann claimed "all words are interesting" I'm still not sure, 30 years later, what he meant. Does all include words that are variants of dictionary words? Slang? Nonce? Typos? Misspellings? Does all include foreign languages, even ones that the reader may not know? Do words include special symbols such as international signs for men's and women's bathrooms, or symbols that hoboes paint on fences to warn about unfriendly dogs? What about words that aren't interesting now but that were at one time, or will be someday?

Interesting is the most interesting word of all. It can't be objective--it requires a person regarding something as interesting. It also requires a context; if you see the word STOP on a red octagonal sign by the road for the umpteenth time, it loses interest as a word even as it continues to function as an instruction. However, if you are a helicopter pilot searching for someone trapped on a desert island and sees STOP scratched in the sand, that is interesting (maybe it can be interpreted as Save This One Person).

The main question raised by Borgmann's statement is "What does interesting mean?". That question requires a person who cares enough about words to conjure up in his or her mind the concept of a word's interestingness that lies outside the realm of simple communication. I doubt that Gary Gilmore, on being led to his execution before a firing squad, said at the last moment "Hey--do you guys know that racecar is a palindrome?" Even if he did, I doubt that the guys on the firing squad replied "Oh, yeah, it's spelled the same backwards" or "No, but have you heard that one about the Panama Canal?" or even "Yeah, Gilmore, all my life, but red rum, sir, is murder. Now die, bastard!"

If book publishing is any indication, not too many people agree with Borgmann--most people would wonder why he even bothered to make such a statement. Unlike pornography, wordplay has a small audience. Many people would wonder "Why choose one word over another?" (I wonder why people choose one football team over another, when it's just as easy to not choose football at all.) Borgmann's statement is analogous to saying "Art is everything" (isn't anything exempt?). Or "Everything is beautiful" (then why do we have the word ugly?). Or "I never met a man I didn't like" (try Adolph Hitler for starters). These are statements that sound completely true and godlike, but are merely statements that are fun to think about--but only to those who have fun thinking about statements like that.

Take number names. There are a lot of interesting number names, but when you consider that there are one thousand vigintillion number names, there must be quintillions that are really, really boring. When you get into the bajillions, you have to consider so many number names that are essentially the same except for the last part. This is interestingness overkill. On the other hand, VIBGYOR color names are interesting because there are only seven, and within the concept of color names each is unique--it's easy to find something for each that makes it stand out.

The only words that are interesting to me are those for which I have found something that qualifies them as interesting--until I forget them or get bored with them. Actually, I prefer words that are amazing and enjoyable--these are the ones that are unforgettable!

DAVE MORICE

Iowa City, Iowa