Tag Archives: etymology

I Distrust My Mistrust of Lame Post Friday

I pause in my gyrations for a blog post.  It can only be a Lame Post Friday post, I am afraid.  If anybody has been paying attention (I personally am too broke to pay attention), they might notice I am a post short of a full week (a few sandwiches shy of a picnic?  A few french fries short of a Happy Meal?  Not the sharpest knife in the drawer?  Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier?  The porch light’s on but nobody’s home?  I can go on for a while).  Where was I?  Ah yes, Lame Post Friday.

Blue skies, smiling at me! Sing it!

I throw in a fall-colored picture to cheer us all up.  Alas, skies are more grey than blue today, but I did see some fall colors as I drove to Little Falls and back to swim for exercise and sociability.   Now I am at home, wondering if I can get anything done but mistrusting my ability to do so.  Do mistrust and distrust mean the same thing?  Oh, look, there is my dictionary.

Picture to denote passage of time while I look in the dictionary.

Regular readers know I like to pick up a large book rather than use the computer to look things up.  It may seem silly, but then, this is me we are talking about.

They pretty much mean the same thing.  I daresay there is some difference in shades of meaning but I am not up to an etymological discussion. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

 

Too Much Lame On My Hands

How did it get to be seven o’clock on Saturday morning?  I know, in the usual way. And in the increasingly usual way, I am making my Lame Post Friday post late.  These things happen.

Here is something that occurred to me as I typed the preceding:  we always say “o’clock.” Nobody ever says “of the clock.”  At least I never hear them do it.  I guess that is one of those lost positives I have heard about, like “ept.”

Speaking of “ept,”  my most often heard lost positive, I think it is not really one.  I believe the positive form on “inept” is “adept.”  I thought of that all by myself.  Of course, I am no linguist and could be full of beans.  Somebody who really knows etymology (that is the right word; I looked it up) could probably set me straight.  I do not mind at all if anybody cares to be didactic about it in the comments.

Incidentally, while I typed in the line about thinking of it myself, I could practically hear somebody saying, “Got a lot of time on your hands, do you?”  This is a bit of condescension I think we could all do without.  I have been guilty of it myself and now that I think about it, I decide that I am going to try to stop saying it.  And for the record, I do not have a lot of time on my hands but often leave things undone while my mind chases these convoluted thoughts.

I see I am getting to 250 words.  Lame words?  Well I think that is the point of Lame Post Friday.