morpho logy

[rone]

After completing this vocabulary quiz (which i found via Allan's gentil journal; i scored 166, if you're curious), i was reminded of something that is a bit of a secret shame. You know the Íñigo Montoya quote, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I often use words i've picked up, which meanings i've inferred from context but have never actually looked up because, hey, it's obvious from context what they mean. Except it turns out that they don't mean exactly what i think they mean. And that bothers and embarrasses me. Which is why, because i hit the dictionary so often (and, hell, an OED might be expensive, but i hit the book so often it would be a worthwhile investment, but i'm cheap...), i've bound F1 on my UNIX shell to fire up lynx to look up a word online.

There are so many words out there waiting to be actively used; instead, we misuse perfectly good words because we think they mean something that isn't exactly what they really mean, and we misuse them often enough until, voilà, they do mean that something that we've been using all along. If we can't be bothered to be precise in our choice of words, how can we be precise in expressing our thoughts?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I would say that most languages have a backbone in the (rock solid) grammar and the words that are most often used, such as the personal pronouns, articles, common verbs, etc....the common usage. The rest of the words roll around and slough in their various contexts and connotations until they either fix or become so hazy in usage that they are later used as synonyms for the F-word. (Remember how Ronnie and Dave used argue over the derivation of that word? Or was that Ronnie and me?)

—Allan (http;//radio.weblogs.com/0105058/)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

So, language is a snake.

I don't remember who. We probably all did. "Good times... good times," as whippersnappers like to say these days.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey! Remember that all those e-mail cascades? And the politically correct ketchup cascade? Language is an Ophidian-American, you insensitive clod! Livejournal weblogs, the new Usenet. *shudder*

Good times... that was a Bill McNeil quote from NewsRadio, wasn't it? I thought kids nowadays are saying, "back in the day." Or have I misinferred?

By the way, here's a NewsRadio drinking game (http://www.geocities.com/chengwes/nr_drinking_game.html). It's really late here.

—Allan (http://radio.weblogs.com/0105058/)