Wordsmithing

Tags

humor, irony, word

I love words. Certain words are just fun…cornucopia is one of my favorites. I just like how it sounds to say it. I like homonyms – “they’re having their party over there”. I like the sound of the word homonym too. I don’t like useless letters – if we have culturally grown past something, let’s correct it and move on, like taking the k out of knife. Nife is something we can all figure out (except for my current spell checker). I don’t like useless words –irregardless. No, it’s just regardless. And you can be overwhelmed, sometimes you’ll find someone underwhelmed, but is anyone ever just whelmed?

But in my love for words (like conundrum, serendipity, habberdash, and velvet), I also have those that irk me. Irk is one of them. Top of the list…moist, followed by seepage. That just conjures instant and disgusting connotations that I can do without. Uvula is another. A freakish name for an apparently useless body part. Now combine them…does my moist uvula have seepage? I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Passion, differential, biscuit, jumbo, propecia (yes the drug), daffodil – I like these words – they strike me as fun to say

Sarcophagus, roof, grown/groan, booty, reconnoiter – these words – not so much

Emotion, elocution, enunciation, context – all of these make a difference in our perception of the spoken word and how it affects us. Whether it makes us smile, cringe, or question. Hmmm, if I am a wordsmith who crafts with words, does a blacksmith craft with black? Does baby oil come from babies? Why can’t trees leave? The story was so humorous it left me in stitches. I broke my humerus and had to get stitches. Ironically there is no iron in irony. There’s no I in team but there is a me! Now I digress because it is time for an elegant egress. Egrets? No, bird is not the word, but Grease is!

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Nope – I’m not bashful

Tags

auto, battery, car, humor

So last night my battery died. Thankfully I was at home but it was a strange incident in that it just cratered – no warning, no half-assed attempt to start – just D-E-D, dead.

Now disconnecting a battery is pretty simple provided you have a few tools on hand. What was not simple was unscrewing the bracket that held the battery down to the car. Some gear-head with a pneumatic wrench must have torqued this thing down!  But help arrived in the form of a high-school football player who only needed a few tries to break it loose.  So the battery was finally yanked out of the car and thankfully I had a back-up vehicle to get to the auto parts store – 15 minutes til closing but I made it! (Forgot to mention the fun involved in driving the truck through the grass to get around the car stalled in the driveway).

Now it’s been awhile since I’ve flirted with the counter help, but lord help me there is something about these guys that gets me. It’s how I ended up with husband #1. So the nice sales guy spends a few minutes trying to locate the battery that the computer says is in stock, which happens to be the cheaper of two options (do I really need a battery with a 9 year life? Uhm probably not since I don’t plan to have the car that long. 6 years will do, thanks).  He tells me he may not actually have the cheaper one and I told him he could just sell me the other one at the reduced price.

“You aren’t bashful are you?”

“No-I’ve been accused of being a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.”

Laughter ensued, the correct battery was found, there was a lively conversation about goats/cattle/bunnies and shortly after 9pm I was driving back to my place to bring life back to my car.

I was dirty, I was sweaty, but I was no longer vexed. I realized that no, I’m not bashful or shy. Mostly because I can’t afford to be or nothing would ever get done. But it’s funny when a stranger makes such an observation, catches you off guard and changes your perspective.  The flirting helps too.