Words I like

In the movie Donnie Darko, Drew Barrymore's character says that "cellar door" is considered to be the most beautiful phrase in the English language. She doesn't specify by whom or how they managed to arrive at that particular phrase, but I can think of a few other phrases that I find rather more appealing. "More beer" and "Congratulations on winning the million" spring to mind. Before that movie came out, a work colleague of mine who I shall refer to as Alex, because that's his name, asked me what I thought was the most beautiful word or phrase in the English language. I said "trousers" and Alex nearly fell off his chair.

Alex has a peculiar fascination for words and phrases, particularly collective nouns. Because I work in IT, Alex once asked me what I thought the collective noun for a group of IT workers might be. He suggested "conundrum" and "cornucopia" as possible contenders before I told him straight out that the correct term for a group of IT workers is, of course, a "gaggle of geeks". Surprisingly, Alex was less than impressed and went off to interrogate the Engineering department.

Other collective nouns that I like are "a brace of orthodontists", "a murder of crows" and "an absence of waiters".

Other phrases that I like include "Aurora Borealis", "macadamia nuts", "four-legged droopy dipole" which is a type of radio antenna, and "Carrickalinga Boulevard" which is a street near where I used to live. In fact I want to buy a house there just so that I can tell people that I live on Carrickalinga Boulevard. Best of all, it's just around the corner from the Torresan Estate winery which has an excellent cellar door.