Words

So I haven't had the energy to find more bizarre words (and none have willingly crossed my path), so I thought I'd list a pet peeve list for misused words. I know everyone screws up now and then, but certain mistakes just drive me crazy!

Loose vs. lose

You don't "loose" weight. You may "lose" weight, but not "loose" it.

Ideal vs. idea

You may have an "ideal" for many things, but it's not the same as when you have an "idea".

Then vs. than

You might do one thing, "then" another. Or maybe you'd prefer to do one thing "than" another. Then is for showing sequence or time of something, and than is generally used for comparing or relating things.

Word of the Day!

I've been thinking about funny words (probably because I just wrote a keyword article that required a third of the article to synonyms for article "spinning"). I will, as long as my attention span and memory cooperate, post funny or weird words or phrases every so often. I'll start with some winners I found while consulting my thesaurus for that article:

• fille de joie- If you remember from basic French lessons, "fille" is a young woman or lady and "joie" is joy. So what exactly is a young woman of joy? A prostitute of course! (They're always so happy and well adjusted, after all...)
• filius nullius- a bastard
• fillius populi- a bastard
• whoreson- Yes, you guessed it, a bastard! (and if you need some more zingers for shaming someone because of their parents' lack of matrimony, here you go- catch colt, woods colt, chance-child, come-by-chance, and mamzer)

That's it for now. If I don't stop looking at the thesaurus I'll never get more writing done. Since I have about $3 to my name (not counting debt- that puts me way in the red- don't tell student loans about my $3!), I need to get to work.

I tried to find a clip of the student loans people taking Howard Moon away for not paying, but I couldn't find one. It is at the end of the Eels episode of The Mighty Boosh.