Juvenile adjectives

I was trying unsuccessfully to think of adjectives that start with the letter J.

Now I can name some:
Jade, jazzy, jumpy, junky, jerky, jilted, jiggling, or would it be jiggly?  and juvenile.

Do words that start with G, but sound like J count?
Germy, ginfilled, German, germaine, generous...

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!

crazy words

Crazy is kindof a crazy word. Only 2 syllables short. It contains the letter Z, which is under-utilized in our language. And it contains Y used as a vowel. Also quite unusual.

Crazy means insane, eccentric, or mad.

It can also be used as an intensifier as in She's crazy mean.

It can be used as a compliment, too. That's crazy cool!

Just a few of my crazy thoughts. I'm done now.

Delightful Surprise

Is a delightful surprise or a surprising delight? It works both ways.

Peaceful Rest or Restful Peace? Same difference.

How weird is that?! Same difference? That's definitely an oxymoron.

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.

Would you like a Booth?

I think this is an utterly ridiculous word: booth. BOOth. Sometimes I go in to a restaurant and they ask, would you like a booth or a table. I like booths beter, but I am reluctant to say the word. The more you think about it, the more absurd it seems. It even looks absurd. Come to think of it absurd is rather awkward, too. But the MOST awkward word is definitely: awkward. How many other words have two Ws in them? not many!

absurd -- adj. weird, strange.
awkward -- adj. not graceful, off-balance.
booth-- n. a table against a wall with bench seats instead of separate chairs; int. what a ghost who lisps shouts at you.

Maybe next year I'll be a ghost for Halloween and lisp, "BOOth" to the candy donors.