Word of the Day

Good morning Toastmaster of the Day, Club Acting President, fellow Toastmasters and guests,

I will be the Language Evaluator for today's meeting. My role is to give the Word of the Day. Hopefully you will gain a netter understanding of this word and use it more in our meetings and also in your daily life. After that, I will be sitting with the dictionary, listen to your speeches, and comment on the good and no-so-good usage of English at the end of the meeting.

The Word of the Day today is:

DELIGHT
To delight somebody means to make somebody happy.

But be careful in your usage. To delight somebody carries a more intricate meaning than to make somebody happy. To delight somebody is also different from to cheer somebody up, though the two phrases both means to make somebody happy.

Delight as a noun means pure happiness.This type of happiness conveyed by "delight" is not shocking, intense happiness. Rather, "delight" conveys a sense of pleasant happiness, like a little spark of fire that starts small, but grows and glows consequently.

That is the reason why to delight is different from to cheer up. The effect of to cheer somebody up is like to pull a rubber band. The happiness comes fast and the feeling is strong, even though it may not last long.

According to to the Oxford Dictionary of English, we have the official definition of Delight:

Delight (v) vi. and vt.
Delight as a verb comes in the form of Intransitive Verb (vi.) and Transitive Verb (vt.). Intransitive Verb means the verb does not need to be followed by either a noun or an adjective phrase. Transitive verb is the verb that needs to be followed by at least another object.

The verb of delight when it requires a supporting object (vt.) means to please someone greatly.
                E.g. The experience of standing up here and talking about delight truly delights me.
When it does not need to be followed by a noun or adjective phrase, to delight means to take pleasure in.
                E.g. We delight when we have food at the breaks of our Toastmasters meeting.

Delight (n) countable noun and uncountable noun
Delight as a noun comes both in the form of countable noun and uncountable noun. That means sometimes you can count delight and sometimes you cannot.

When delight is an uncountable noun, it means pleasure and happiness.
                E.g. Jenny felt great delight when she won the Best Prepared Speech Award during our previous meeting.

When delight is a countable noun, it means the cause and the source of the pleasure and happiness.
                E.g. The Award of the Best Prepared Speech during our previous meeting was a great delight for Jenny.

The adjectives of Delight comes in two forms: delighted and delightful.

Delighted (a) refers to the happy feeling of a person.
               E.g. I will be delighted if you use the word of the day as often as possible in your speeches today.

Delightful (a) refers to an object or an event that causes the delight.
              E.g. Some delightful food is waiting for you at the break of our meeting today.

So Delight, Delighted, Delightful are the words of the day today. Try to use it as often as possible in your speeches.

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