I am an admitted word nerd. I keep a running list of favorited words that I find in books I read, or hear, hoping to find a way to add them to a story someday.
Words like “phantasmagoric,” and “pentimento,” “callipygian,” and “trousseau,” are a balm to my weary mind.
There are words that will never trip easily off my tongue or fingertips, but are fabulous in their intricacy – “floccinaucinihilipilification” [flok-suh-naw-suh-nahy-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-key-shuhn], which means “the act of judging something to be worthless.” How great is that word?
For all you lint pickers there is, “omphaloskepsis” [om-fuh-loh-skep-sis] – “contemplation of one’s naval as a means of meditation.” You now have a word for it.
The more complicated a word is, the more grandiose, the more I love it and must possess it, and in possessing it, flaunt it.
It’s the small, mundane words that I loath. Words like ‘”lay” and “lie,” “me” and “I,” that make me apoplectic.
My contentious relationship with “affect” and “effect” was finally resolved, so too my feud with “who” and “whom.”
Yet, “lay” and “lie” still vex me. The present tenses I can decipher, it’s those past, perfect, future, participles and pluperfects, that I struggle to grasp. Especially when one word works for several definitions and/or tenses, depending on the context. I usually search for an alternative, and avoid the bastages altogether.
For “me” and “I,” it’s not my ineptitude of their proper use that sets my teeth on edge, it’s when I find them used by others incorrectly.
I acknowledge the same could be said by others when I abuse “lay” and “lie,” and overindulge my comma usage. I own my hypocrisy.
“I” is subjective,“ and “me” is objective. As in “Susan and I are going to the store,” and “Do you want to go to the store with Susan and me?”
An exceptionally easy way to test which to use, is to simply remove the other name from the sentence.
“Do you want to go to the store with Susan and me?” as opposed to “Do you want to go to the store with Susan and I?”
“Kathy went to the store with Susan and me,” not “Kathy went to the store with Susan and I.”
The second sentences makes no sense, because They. Are. Wrong.
Word nerd rant over… resume normal.
I used to think I was a word nerd, but I think I break more rules than I follow. I’ve always understood the “I” – “me” thing, though and I’ve managed to adhere to it pretty well over the years. And I DO love to throw out more descriptive words than the usual now and then. I recently told my husband I would stop PONTIFICATING. He looked at me funny and said, “You know, normal people don’t talk like that.”
YES. This post was soothing to my soul. The me/I thing drives me insane! Such a simple concept but so many people just do not get it.
I’m a word nerd too. (Remember my post ages ago about loving to diagram sentences? Yeah, like that.) The sharpest thorn in my nerdy side? “I should have went to the store.” Argh.
I LOVED diagramming sentences! It’s like solving a puzzle. I was surprised when my kids told me their schools didn’t teach diagramming. What a waste of a good teaching tool. My husband’s grammar pet peeve is the misuse of “good” and “well,” and he’s not shy about correcting your usage.
I get all word-nerdy about people saying that food is “healthy” as opposed to it being “healthful.”
Ohhhh, I’m one of those lay/lie purists. (Don’t worry. I’m mostly safe company.) I remember that one by — I lie down, but I lay something down. But. I have to watch it. Because my mother in law. My very educated mother in law (sorry, I just messed up the planets’ order with that in-law) screws up lay/lie, and I want to bite things it hurts my teeth so much. But. She is my mother in law .And I have more respect than that. Mostly. It’s good she has a hearing aid and can’t hear me mutter corrections.
You’ve helped me with my lay/lie disorder many times, and I appreciate that help. In my head I know the difference, but there seems to be a disconnect between my brain and my typing.