Words I like...

'Words' are things/objects regardless of whether they're conceived of as meaning something (in which case they truly are words) or meaning nothing (in which case they are, arguably, not words--I know that it is possible to imagine and invent sound sequences that sound like words but don't have a meaning associated with them, but I don't think 'words' without meaning fall under the concept of a 'word'.

Do you mean this, that 'words' without a meaning associated with them are weird? Or that words if considered irrespective of a meaning that may be associated with them are weird/the people who do this are engaged in a weird activity?

It sounds as if you mean the latter. Naturally, it is often very important to 'know' words irrespective of their meaning--it's what children who acquire language for the first time do primarily for a long time before they begin to understand conceptual associations. I also think that liking words for their mere sound (or perhaps thinking that the respective sounds ought to be associated with different meanings) is perfectly sane, even as a grown-up, obviously only as long as you don't give up enjoying language and words for their meaning at the same time.

As for this thread, somewhat unsurprisingly, it'll be a mixture of enjoying both sounds and meanings, sometimes their exact combination, to different degrees, and for different reasons. I don't think that there is an either-or at all.

I mean that the reification of language as divorced from its 'meaning', no matter how contested that idea might be, is a sort of fetishism. And I don't agree that words are always 'things', at all – I think words are only 'things' in one sense: the material fact of the marks on the page, as pure sign. A 'word' needs to be a compound of sign and signified to work as a signifier. So in what sense is a verbal utterance without an abstract referent a 'word' at all? Of course this is all complicated. It's a sign of how thrilling my Friday nights are that I'm discussing semibloodyotics, frankly. You're a lapsed linguist, BMMF? Interesting.