My Favorite Word is "Cup"

When I was married, my husband and I used to watch Inside the Actors Studio, talk show hosted by writer and actor, James Lipton. Lipton interviewed A-list actors, directors, and other high-profile theatre and film types. The show had a segment in which Lipton asked the guest a list of 10 questions. One of the questions Lipton always asked: “What is your favorite word?” 

Illustration by Teece Aronin

For some reason, every time Lipton asked the question, the word that leapt to my mind was “cup.” Yup, “cup.”

Lipton’s glitterati usually said things like “freedom,” “heroism,” “gratitude,” and “grace.” I always said, “Cup.”

            

When I confided this naively to my husband, the cupboard door slammed loudly on any chance I’d ever have to keep that information on the downlow. Even now, long after our divorce, he often brings it up and laughs as though there’s something weird about it.

But “cup” sounds good, and it feels good just to say it. “Cup.”

There is something immensely gratifying in the sound of the “hard C” used to say “cup.” Sometimes the hard C comes out sounding somewhat soft, but sometimes (and this I love) it is as crisp a sound as a knife tapping on pewter. I don’t know why that is; it just is.

            

Cups are little girls’ tea parties, a queen's high teas, and coffee-scented mornings in a cabin. There is the Stanley Cup, there are peanut butter cups, and there are loving cups, and what sweeter notion is there than cups that love?

            

Cups are round, little vessels filled with something warm. They are colorful, fragile, yet paradoxically durable. They are a ride at Disneyland. They are my abandoned childhood and the old age I secretly, sort of, almost look forward to. There are cupcakes, buttercups, and teacup poodles. Cups have their fingers in so many things, but mugs don't; they just can’t pull it off.

            

There are other even more left-of-center words that might appeal to someone whose favorite word is "cup," "cumquat," for instance, but even though it starts with a hard C sound, the word "cumquat" does nothing for me. There’s something mysterious and dangerous about the word “barista,” yet even though baristas work with cups every day, that word could never be my favorite. Canoodling is a hard C word I kind of like, but it can’t hold a candle to "cup."

            

So, that’s it. My favorite word is “cup.” Like my ex-husband, you probably think it’s weird. But I won't let that get me down, because there's also "in my cups," which is where I'm headed now.