Word To Use Today: odyssey.

This is The Word Den's two thousand and first post.

That's quite a lot of posts. 

How have the subjects for these posts been chosen?

Well, sometimes they've been prompted by something in the media - a few days ago, after the sudden withdrawal of Boris Johnson as a candidate for leadership of the British Conservative Party, everyone is quoting Et tu, Brute? so perhaps a piece about vocatives (ie why it's Brute, when everyone knows the man's name was actually Brutus) might prove of interest.

Sometimes finding a subject is just a matter of opening the dictionary at random and looking for something interesting. There are treasures, after all, on every page.

Sometimes the calendar is a prompt; sometimes I find myself wondering exactly what the words I'm using mean; sometimes I comes across a brand new word and have to look it up.

Sometimes I might wonder why a piece of music is so cheering, or why a particular book sends me to sleep; why the jackdaws are making such a racket, or whether the baddies in the movies talk more or less than the goodies.

Sometimes The Word Den responds to a piece of history, even if it's very minor history like today's post.

So: what can I write about today? 

To me, 2001 immediately brings to mind a famous film I've never managed to sit through because of its sad dearth of words.

Still, odyssey: that's a good word, isn't it?

Word To Use Today: odyssey. The original odyssey was called after, and made by, Odysseus. He was trying to get home to Ithaca (or Ithaka) after fighting in the Trojan wars, a distance of about 565 nautical miles. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for world literature, various adventures on the way meant that the trip took ten years, and now any long eventful journey can be called an odyssey.