Word To Use Today: agog.

Some words are elegant, some are charming, and some are just ridiculous.

Agog, meaning eager for something to be revealed, is neither elegant nor charming. In fact it's the sort of word that's hardly ever used for fear of ridicule.

This is a waste of an excellent word.

So next time a teacher or manager says do I have everyone's attention? Then please reply yes, we're all agog.

(Do everything you can not to make it sound sarcastic, though, or this will be less than soothing.)

Next time the poor Honorary Secretary has to read out the minutes of the last meeting, then a simple ooh, great, I'm quite agog, will offer support to the performer of a usually thankless task...

...though, again, this might be hard to carry off with conviction.

Hm...

...it's not easy, is it?

Perhaps, if we want to use the word agog, the safest thing is to describe the watching of YouTube clips of people walking into lamp posts.

Word To Use Today: agog. To me, because I associate it with the word goggles, this word implies a wide-eyed attention. In fact agog comes from the Old French en gogues. The en bit means in, and gogue means fun.