else where, Jackie posted:

...in the latest AWADMail:
It was Milton, I believe, who coined a kind of antonym to "pantheon," namely "pandemonium"
http://wordsmith.org/words/pandemonium.html
the capital for denizens of the underworld and by extension, I suppose, it has come to mean the type of environment one might expect of such a place. Not that we say "pantheon broke out" or the like. :-)


i remember when i 'got' pandora. i knew "pan' and i knew dora--and when i suddenly realize Pandora's box was "pan" (all/every) plus dora (gift(s)) i felt like a fool who has been looking at a treasure and not seeing it.

and in an other thread, the book Middlesex (by Jeffery Eugenides) is mentioned.. one of the words used in the book, is Pantocrator --and while this is a new word.. well its easy to understand.

i know i could sit (as did as child) and read the dictionary for all the pan words, and make a list.

i am not interested in that simple list.. but it might be fun to learn everyone's eureka word --or one (or more) of their eureka words, since, (slow learner that i am, it took me a while to 'get' roots and meaning; and the way words are sometimes put together (and can be taken apart to learn meanings) i had several eureka words before i became a word nerd in earnest.

--re-reading, i realize i presumed everyone had the same or similar experience --my bad..
perhap the question should be broader.. what lead you to be word nerd? --was there a eureka moment? or did it come slowly over time?


my other obsession