chirimiri

Many birds have regional tweaks in their songs – especially blackbirds, chaffinches and willow warblers. Kentish blackbirds often select a phrase similar to part of the third movement of Beethoven’s violin concerto

Geraldine Taylor The Coffee Thrush


After my attempt to sum up How I Attained Enlightenment Through Cycling in fifty words or less (through boko-maru with the pedals, possibly), I got a message from Alan Summers, the haiku man, asking for a single word. He's going to be up on the plinth

I'd like as many people as possible to send me "important words" and I will read out as many as I can during my hour on the plinth.

What's important to you that can be summed up in just one single word?

Is it a word that's important to the world, or is it something personal like someone's name?

All of your important words are welcome whoever you are.

You can give a reason why the word is important to you, but you don't have to. You can include your name, or remain anonymous.

Email your important words to: importantword@withwords.org.uk by 4pm Monday 27th July, or give them to myself or my wife or Beatrice in Trafalgar Square between noon and four o'clock - we'll be the ones collecting important words.

I couldn't think of a portentous sort of word, so I settled for a nice sounding one instead. People who live in rainy places could do with more words to describe rain, probably. And you do seem to get more types in the Wess Vinglun than you do elsewhere. Like that fine, misty drizzle that gets you soaked through in no time at all. The Basques call it chirimiri, I was told by Suzanne who once lived there.

So that's my word. Because it sounds nice. And an attempt to describe it, in seventeen syllables (but not less)

chirimiri

This mist I move through;
I blink it out of my eyes.
My coat’s cold and wet