By Andrea Lingle

I have no favorite children, but I do have beloved words. Perhaps, apparently, generative, credulous, and meticulous are some of my favorites.

They are my favorite because they create spaces.

Perhaps is a wide word. It is a curious word without being invasive. It is less active than “I wonder.” It is a patient word which does not insist on a follow up meeting or a sticky note. It is a gentle word that leaves room for mystery.

Apparently is a surprising word. It lifts the corner of the curtain revealing something unexpected. In the stroll through life, it is the unintended romance that bubbled out of catching lunch, it is the finding-out-when-we-get-there-ness of life. It is a cheeky word, and it reminds me that, for all my sophistication, can find myself with my zipper down and the gas cap flapping on the side of the car.

Generative is a very fancy word. It means that which brings forth, but I think it does so with an OxBridge accent and a tweed jacket. It helps me remember that a dandelion could have windblown seeds without a beguiling sphere perfect for blowing, that conchs could build houses that didn’t glisten with the colors of a gentle summer sunset, and laughter is not biologically necessary. I am so very grateful that our world beguiles, glistens, and laughs.

Credulous is one of the inside-out words that make me work harder than it does. Inside-out words are hidden in words we say so much they have become invisible. For example, the old quandary about whelmed. You can be over and underwhelmed . . . but can you be just whelmed? Or imagine yourself standing in the middle of a room in shocked disbelief. I heard a new one today: maculate. The earthy, wormy, fecund inside-out version of immaculate. Credulous has a meaning, but we don’t use it. We say incredulous: a shocked hauteur of disbelief. So, most of us must infer that credulous means the inverse: a willing open belief. It is a bold word in this cynical world. Almost rebellious. Credulous.

Oh, meticulous, how did you make this list. So proper and fussy. So demanding. So unable to sit with the rest of these words. Even so, I like this word for two reasons. First, it forces me to slow down, see my work and life in an evaluative space, and keep at something until it is my best. Second, meticulous, sounds like I am speaking the language of spiders. The phonetic representation of jointed exoskeleton legs and a multiplicity of appendages.

And, to say this, the primmest of words, you have to scrunch your nose, which is completely improper, so there goes that, apparently.