My Incipient Career

This word keeps showing up: incipient. It reminds me of insipid or perhaps incendiary. Incipient -- adj. just beginning; in the early stages. Insipid -- adj. vapid, foolish. Incendiary -- adj. flammable; inciting strong emotions. Right now I'm feeling angry, but not motivated enough to write an incendiary article. I'm thinking about my career and wordering whether it is incipient, or actually just insipid...?

Are you Dapper or Dishabille?

Dapper- smartly dressed. Used only for men. I've never heard it referring to a woman, don't hear it much any more anyway. Probably because kids would much rather look like a rapper than dapper.

Dishabille -- as previously discussed, inappropriately or incompletely dressed.

Deft or Daft?

As you know I like monosyllablic words.

Today I am intrigued by deft, and daft.

I think I may have written about daft a few years ago. It seems the British like to use that word.

Daft -- adj. silly, crazy. From Old English (OE). It's related to daffy.

Deft -- adj. apt, able, adept. It may be related to that word...? But it says that deft is from OE (the same word as daft) and adept from Latin. For some reason I came up with all words that begin with "a." This dictionary says skillful, and adroit.

There is a hypnosis presentation tonight at Books-A-Million in Palm Harbor FL. We will have several hypnotists deftly demonstrate hypnotic techniques to help you relax, reduce anxiety, and instill confidence. All of our presenters are deft. Some are even daft. Read about it on my other blog, Verbal Impact.

Please join us at 7PM!

Purjurious Verdure

The philolog would like to apologize for misleading you, dear reader. Perjurous is NOT a word. The adjective form of the noun perjury is perjurious. So there is no word that rhymes with verdurous.

purjury --n. false, misleading, or incomplete testimony.

purjurer -- n. one who breaks promises or lies under oath.

purjurious -- adj. characterized by the breaking of promises or misleading or prevaricating.

Verdurous Perjury

Verdurous is a beautiful word!! Lush, Lavish, and Green, which is my favorite color!

Verdure means a young, lush green growth. It is pronounced like ver-jur-us. The "d" sounds like a "j" not like the "d" in murderous. I only mention this because I made the mistake of thinking it rhymed with murderous. It actually rhymes with perjurous.

The word verdurous is related to the word, verdant, and shares the same meaning. They are both synonyms for green. I chose this word because Green is my favorite color, and because St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays.

Verdure--n. the lush greenness of flourishing vegetation.
Verjurous--adj. green, young, vigorous.

The Emerald Island is so named because it is verdurous.

You Blow Me Away

More light and airy expressions.

Blown Away. Is this a good thing?

Blown over is usually good, when said of a storm.

Blow my mind. 80s flashback. Or did it come from the 70s and acid trips?

Blow up means to explode. Not usually a good thing.

And this sounds like a pirate expression:

Why, Blow me down!

Vast

Vast is a short sweet monosyllablic word. A small word for the broad, wide, huge, enormity of space. It's difficult to contemplate how vast the universe is.

I doubt it comes from Greek or Latin. Too short. I'll have to check.

Do you deserve to read this?

I was just reading something about working with the undeserved population.

I had to do a double-take.

What is the unDESERVED population?

I guess I should wear my glasses.

It actually said, the underSERVED population.

One small letter, one huge difference!

Stationary

Are you stationary or mobile? Still or moving?

I'm intrigued by homophones like stationary and stationery.

Stationary is an adjective, meaning immobile, unchanging.

Stationery is a noun.

Stationery is out of style right now. But someone gave me some beautiful notecards the other day. He's a photographer and he took the photos and printed them on card stock himself. I will definitely have to use them! For those of you born before the ubiquity of email and texts, that means that I am going to send a card through Snail Mail. It used to be called just "mail." But now we need to differentiate between the modern and traditional.

I don't want to be left behind, but sometimes the old ways are better. Think about how annoyed you were after the 20th text you got today, and how happy you were the last time you got a card or letter through the mail, in your mailbox! Even if you try to persuade me that texts are better, I will remain stationary on this matter.

Of course, sometimes the new way is better. When I went to college I had a popcorn maker. You can't make anything else in them, just popcorn. And now we can just put a package in the microwave for about 3 minutes and have delicious, hot, flavored popcorn.


Popcorn is not stationary. I wonder how high the people jumped the first time they threw some dried up old corn kernels on the fire and they started jumping and popping...