It is rumored that verbomania is an actual word. If we look at the etymology of verbomania, we see that verbo- comes from the Latin word verbum, meaning “words.” This gives us an indication of the meaning of the word, but one also needs to trace the history of its second half, mania. Mania, a Greek word, means, “madness, enthusiasm, inspired frenzy, passion, fury.” It has been said to originate in such words as mantis, meaning “seer,” menos, meaning “passion or spirit,” and mainesthai, which means, “to rage or go mad.” All of these words originate from the prefix men-, which we can define as “to think, rage, be furious, or to have one’s mind aroused.” From tracing the origins of the word verbomania, we can allow ourselves to believe in its rumored existence because who better to assess this claim than a writer who would follow its journey from words to maddening arousal and back.
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Infomania is an excessive devotion to accumulating facts. A fact is true. Truth conforms to reality. Reality is the state of being real. A state is something adhering to its attributes. Or a district of a nation. Or a verb used to indicate information through the use of a symbol or formula. A formula is a conventionalized statement expressing a fundamental principle. A fundamental principle is something from which other truths can be derived. Truths are facts. Facts are stated. Something stated is expressed in words.
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The insatiable desire for writing verse
seldom leaves an author feeling terse.
Some would view this talent as a curse,
go so far as to call it perverse.
But let’s take a moment to converse
about the metromaniac who is so diverse.
In the beauty of words they can submerse
the reader and create inverse
meanings, across the page they traverse
the reader through the universe.
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Onomatomaniacs have an irresistible desire to repeat certain words. This repetition of words is certainly irresistible. This irresistibly desirous repetition leaves a certain something to be desired in those that do not resist resisting this repetition. One can seldom resist such a certain desire for words; in fact, a desire to repeatedly repeat certain irresistible words is desirously repetitive. Irresistibly so.
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Graphology is the study of handwriting, with a focus on finding indications of a writer’s disposition or personality. It is the analysis of the intricate loops and twirls, hard angles and pressure points of a pen on a page. But a writer’s personality is hidden in the images, the words, the ideas. Graphology takes away the meaning, the thoughts and feelings that drive the writer to write. It sucks out the delicate beauty of writing like marrow from a bone. It reduces the majesty of the whole to less than sentences, less than individual words, relentlessly hacking letters into garlands, arcades, slopes, slants, zones, threads, and connectors, turning them into little more than Lego blocks. It reduces writers, those closet sufferers of graphomania, into listless automatons. It breaks down each letter into an anonymous twist of a wrist or twitch of a finger when, if they took a step back, they could find more insights into the writer’s mind than their science ever could.
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