The Bee's Bookshelf discussion

Use this thread to share some of your favorite words from The List by Patricia Forde. Since language is of such importance in this month's selection, we'd also love to hear which words would make your List, and which words from the List in the story you wouldn't keep around.

Here are a few of my favorite words from The List:
scavenger
guttural
turbulent
incessant
glowered
jittering
wordless
hewn

One thing that I found really interesting about List in the book was the lack of "please" and "thank you," which seem like staples in everyday conversation. So I'd probably have to add them to mine!

Tyler wrote: "Here are a few of my favorite words from The List:
scavenger
guttural
turbulent
incessant
glowered
jittering
wordless
hewn

One thing that I found really interesting about List in the book was the ..."

I hadn't even realized the lack of "please" and "thank you" until you pointed it out. I would definitely need to add those to my List, too.

I also really like your list of favorite words from the book. I just looked up "wordless" in the dictionary to see how it's used regularly. I'm personally more familiar with the word "speechless." According to the dictionary, "wordless" seems to be used in the same way, as something that can't be expressed with words. I like that Patricia Forde created her own meaning for it, though.

One thing that I found really interesting about List was the fact that the people concerned about the environment and global warming (who in today's reality would be considered "liberals") are also the people who are suppressing words and music ( a definite non-liberal" characteristic).

Michele wrote: "One thing that I found really interesting about List was the fact that the people concerned about the environment and global warming (who in today's reality would be considered "liberals") are also..."

Wow, Michele, you make such a good point. I hadn't thought about the irony that those who fought to save the planet were also those who wanted to suppress creative pursuits. Although it also didn't seem like the characters who were living on the fringes of society were necessarily opposed to protecting the environment.

I thought the explanation behind why John Noa wanted to limit language in order to protect the planet was interesting, and I wish that it would've been explored more in the book. For example, I would've enjoyed hearing Letta's thoughts concerning global warming and how she felt about language's role in protecting the earth.

Since "The List" is all about words and the Bee team is full of word nerds, we put together a little video with some of the words that we couldn't live without: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnSED....

You can share your own favorite words by downloading the template from the Bee Blog and using #mylistwords in your posts to Twitter and Instagram. We'll share some of our favorite List words from the Bee's accounts!