Thanks to Claire for increasing my vocabulary and if anybody reading this blog would like to share their favourite words, it would be great to hear from you.

More years than I care to admit to have passed since those halcyon schooldays, but my love affair with words lives on and perhaps it’s no accident that I now make my living writing copy and press releases for small and rural businesses in East Yorkshire.  

When a client dubbed me ‘The Magic Words Lady’, it inspired me to set up an eponymous blog in celebration of words, so here I am.  I intend to use the blog to share words of all sorts – good, bad, inspirational, indifferent…and in particular, new ones that set me rushing to the bookcase for the Funk and Wagnalls..

Today’s word is a new one that I came across in Seth Godin’s blog post Hammer Time and it’s MAVENS.  The context is “Inveterate community-focused social media mavens often bring that particular hammer to other venues.” (although I urge you to read the whole post – he really is very good) and the dictionary definition (according to my prized 1946 Funk and Wagnalls New ‘Standard’ Dictionary) is….drum roll….not listed – no such word exists!  Ok, over to a 1995 Concise Oxford Dictionary and there it is….a colloquial word of North American Yiddish descent meaning ‘expert or connoisseur’.  So now I know.