Waiting

Anticipation. Sounds a little like anxiety, but anxiety is negative.

Expectant. Sounds more Hopeful.

Anticipation is a neutral word which can be either positive or negative.

Do you agree?

Congenial Geniality

Congenial: adjective. 1. having the same taste, habits, or temperament; 2. pleasant, sociable; 3. agreeable, or suited to one's needs or nature.

Genial: adjective. 1. cheerful and friendly; 2. warm or mild, as in climate.

These words are obviously related to each other and the word Genius.

They are synonymous. And there are many congenial synonyms for genial:

Affable, amiable, cordial, easygoing, friendly, warm

This is what is missing from our society! Geniality. People have forgotten their manners and thrown pleasantries out the window.

Sophistry

The word of the day is sophistry.

Sophistry -- n. a deceptive or fallacious argument.

Sophistry is deceiving someone by making a superficial or defective argument, which doesn't hold water. Example: telling your mother you can't clean your room because it will destroy the delicate balance of the ecosystem. 

Sophistry is not a word that you hear every day in conversation, but just turn on the TV and watch the commercials. You'll see plenty!

Stickler No More

I met someone the other day. She is a real stickler! She really wanted to make a point and make sure everyone understood.

stickler -- someone who is very persnickety, critical or perfectionistic.

So is the verb form stickle?

Sticklers are people who stickle!

Glowering

If someone were glowering at you, I get the impression it would not be a good thing. The same goes for someone glaring at you.

glare v. to stare in an angry or fierce way.

glower v. to scowl or appear angry or sullen.

Sullen teenagers glare at their parents every day, which causes the parents to glower at them.

Salacious Definitions

I think this might be a popular article, if and only if people know what salacious means!
Salacious is an adjective, a synonym for lascivious, lecherous, lewd, libidinous, lusty, randy, or wanton.

Merriam Webster says: arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination.

It comes from Latin.

The salacious hypnotist helped menopausal women restore their libidos.

Magnamimous Charisma

I'm contemplating 2 mellifluous words this morning: charisma and magnanimous!

Charisma is a noun meaning 1. an extraordinary power (such as healing) given to a Christian by the Holy Spirit; 2A. a personal magic of leadership, arousing extreme loyalty; 2B. a special magnetic charm or appeal. It comes from the ancient Greek word for rejoice.

Magnamimous is an adjective meaning 1. showing a lofty or courageous spirit; 2. generous and forgiving. It comes from Latin.

These definitions are taken from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Enjoy!

Prompt Intuition

Prompt is an adjective and means to be on time, punctual.

Prompting is much more interesting!
The action of saying something to persuade, encourage, or remind someone to do or say something.

They pay people in the theater and possibly on movie sets to prompt to the actors.
The verb form of prompt would be synonomous with urge, persuade, instigate.

Do you ever sense an inner prompting? To do or say something? I think this could be called intuition. Do you listen to your intuition? Promptings are messages that are so urgent we act on them promptly, sorta like we can't ignore them. But we do anyway. Why do we ignore our promptings? I will expand on this on Musinglog. In this article, I would just like to prompt you to listen to your inner promptings and act on them promptly. You won't regret it.  Thank you!

Contentious Conflagration

I contend that many contemporary and constitutional words begin with the prefix: con. This is convenient and continental.

Contentious -- argumentative

Conflagration -- huge fire

Congratulations! You made it all the way through this contemptuous article.

Transparent or Invisible?

So many coaches are advising entrepreneurs to be "transparent." This means that you should be open and honest, and not hide anything from your potential clients.

So what's difference between transparent and invisible?

Transparent is good. Even Eckhart Tolle recommends it. He says to become transparent and allow emotions to move through you and not take you over.

Invisible is not good. That means that people ignore you, even when you are right in front of them.

Transparent means light shines through you. Invisible means people see through you.

They are synonymous, but "transparent" has taken on some new connotations. And it is cool to be transparent!

Surge or Splurge

The Dictionary is telling me to spend money! This is the advice I got: You should allow yourself to splurge once in a while!

Splash
splurge
spend
surge

How are these words related?!
Splurge means to spend extravagantly or ostentatiously. Wow! 2 more extravagant words!

The word splurge was first used around 1830, and may be a combination of spend and surge. Perhaps spend and urge?

But where did the lovely L come from. This is an unusual combination of letters, S-P-L, with an interesting sound. Onomatopeia gives us "splash" which sounds like a wave crashing on some rocks.

Splurge is the word of the day as I heard it somewhere this morning...

Although I do not consider myself extravagant, I do get the urge to splurge once in a while!

Skirmishes

Skirmish is an unusual word. It means disruption or disagreement. Hens may have a skirmish with each other.

Squirm kinda sounds like it, but they have different origins. must be Latin.

Reminiscing

As I drink my tea, gazing out the window, I ponder the differences between reminiscing and merely remembering.

Reminiscing conjures romantic images of the past.

while remembering seems commonplace, like something you do everyday.

Re-membering means to put the pieces together, like a puzzle. (recollect is a synonym for remember.)

Reminiscing is more like lounging on a hammock...

I am doing a presentation about Memory Enhancement with Hypnosis on August 11. Maybe if we call them remincences instead of memories...

Quench or Quell

Quench your thirst. You don't hear that word in any other context. It means to satisfy with water. It means to extinguish. One synonym would be "quell."

Quell means to 1 put an end to something, usually in a forceful way. 2. pacify or suppress bad feeling: to allay a disturbing feeling or thought in a reassuring way.

Question: where do these "QU" words come from? Apparently they come from Middle or Old English from Old High German.

Another interesting synonym: squelch.

Squelch!

I hope I have been able to quench, quell, and squelch your curiosity about these words!

If you want to Quell the Hot Flash, I have a video coming soon!

Scoff

I scoff at fear!

Scoff is a weird, harsh little word. It almost sounds like a cough, which should be spelled coff.

More about spelling later!

Cantankerous Cacophony

I'm feeling cantankerous today. What cacophony! I's a word which is not too common, but so relevant.

Cantankerous means cranky, irritable, irascible. It is from Latin, I predict. Wait, the origin of this word is much more interesting than I thot. It comes from some alteration or mispronunciation of a Middle English word for troublemaker, which probably came from a French word for contrarian. The opposite of cantankerous is easy-going.

Cacophony means harsh disharmonious (unharmonious?) noise, as opposed to a symphony which is harmonious music. It comes from Greek, caco means bad and phone means noise.

May all you encounters today be harmonious and non-cantankerous!

Rest Assured

Today I was wondering what the difference was between ensure and insure. They have something in common, the root "sure."

The Bing dictionary defines insure thusly:

cover something with insurance: to agree formally that, for a sum of money paid to a company, the company will pay compensation or costs if a particular harm or loss occurs to somebody or something

protect against risk: to get protection from something undesirable that might happen, usually by making contingency plans or taking precautionary or preventive measures

Thus "ensure" is a synonym for insure, but insure also has the meaning of Paying for insurance on something.

And what about assure?

1. convince somebody: to convince somebody of something
2. make somebody confident: to overcome somebody's doubt or disbelief about something
3. make something certain: to make something certain to happen

You can be sure, I am liking these BING definitions!

Good Counsel

Today I am intrigued by the words counsel and council.

Counsel is a verb and it means to advise.

Council is a noun and means a official group of people.

Words that sound the same are called homophones.

Abstreuse

Abstruse, obtuse, are these words related?.

Is obtuse stupid or obstructed?

It means dull-witted, stupid, slow, or thick.

Abstruse means difficult to understand; recondite; esoteric; ambiguous.

Both are adjectives.

Obstuction, obstacle.
Are these words related?
Obstacle is a synonym for obstruction.

Am I obtuse or is this blog abstruse?

Remarkable Majesty

Majesty is a majestic word. Seems somehow related to royalty, and to Magic.

Remarkable is an interesting word. Like interesting, it can be used to indicate something that is neutral, but sounds good. If you don't know what to make of something someone said, you can simply say, that's interesting, even if you really aren't impressed. Remarkable can also mean significant, important, wonderful or merely interesting.

It is remarkable that there are so many exquisite, majestic words in the English language.