The world of words

A word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with a literal meaning and make some sense. In contrast a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning but it might not necessarily be able stand on its own.

A word may consist of a single morpheme (example ‘run’ ) or several morphemes (example ‘running’). A complex word will typically include a root word and one or more affixes (example ‘un-expect-ed’). It might contain more than one root word in order to form the compound word (example ‘rat-race’).

Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (example ‘a red rock’), clauses (example ‘I threw a rock’) and sentences (example ‘I threw a rock and it hit the target’)

The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes even to the abstract concept behind either of those. Phonemes or the units of sound constitute the spoken words. Graphemes or the letters of the English alphabet constitute the written words.

Words convey not just our thoughts but also various emotions accompanying those thoughts. Words tactfully written can make the reader laugh, cry, think, ponder and wonder.

Words preserve our thoughts for the future generations. If we love words and use them wisely, the words will love us too in return, in addition to the readers of those magical words.