I was surprised when a friend, who had been reading my guest columns, suggested that I was a very wordy person, and seemed to love using as many words as possible. My first thought was that he was criticizing me for using too many words, and my second thought was that he was complimenting me for a richness of expression, and ultimately I could see that he was just being truthful. And he’s right. I do love a word.

If there were a Word-of-the-Month Club I would sign up for it right away, and if the news media established a Rare-Word-Alert Hot Line, I would register for that, too. I really do love words, big and small, good and bad, and even rank, and sweet and mysterious.

Just give me a word and I’m happy to have it and delighted to play with it.

Words make great toys. They’re free, and no one can take them away from you. Words don’t break, leak, or need a new battery. You can’t choke to death by swallowing one that’s too big, and stepping on them barefoot doesn’t hurt. They don’t spoil and so they don’t have to be refrigerated. Words make great gifts. You can give them away and still have them, but you must be careful to give away only the nice ones, so as not to offend.

The good book begins with an entire chapter full of creating and naming the parts of our world and our universe, and toward the end, John’s tale begins with: “In the beginning was the word … ” and that sets us all a good precedent for creating and naming what we create, and I guess the assumption is that if you make it, you name it. And so we do.

I had to point out that naming things was one of the basic urges for human beings, for it made it possible for us to discuss, admire, condemn, manipulate, segregate, and even annihilate things and ideas such as men and women, plants and animals, birds, fish, insects and fungi, cars, houses, hats and golf clubs, and anything else you can imagine, name, seek out, or hide from.

As far as dealing with our emotions, without being able to name them, such as mad, glad, sad, scared, joyful, vengeful, and simply downright pissed off, how would we ever know what we were, let alone what someone else was? Well, that’s what we do. We give names to things in order to buy and sell them, create and destroy them, enhance, mutilate and torment them, and in general, leave our mark on the world. The ego demands it.

My friend’s shoulders were beginning to slope a little more than usual, and his eyes a little evasive, and so I asked if that explained things well enough? And he said, “Yes, I think you just illustrated and proved my point.”

Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.