Saturday, December 29, 2007

Ah, the misery of mis....

To all of you who know Freddy, this is for him. He eschews the use of computers, so he will not read this himself, but those of you who have heard our contentious conversations (!) will be able to relay the information to him. Perhaps I will print it off so he can read it.

Our latest excursion into the world of "mis" was talking about mischief. It turns out that mischief is a word in its own right which is harm or trouble, especially as the result of an agent or cause.

We got into this whole discussion because I once said something about Fred's contentious demeanor. In other words, his argumentative behavior at the gym. Then I got to thinking about misdemeanor. Misdemeanor is somewhat the same as misbehavior. So demeanor could just mean behavior. Misdemeanor has come to mean something specific in law enforcement. As does gross misdemeanor.

I looked in the dictionary and there is a list of over 200 "mis" words at the bottom of the pages. "mis" is a prefix when applied to various parts of speech, meaning "ill,"mistaken," "wrong," or simply negating: mistrial, misprint, mistrust.

However, there are some words which simply begin with mis like mischief or miserable.

As you can see, I am hard up for a subject right now. The "chif" will say good night before she becomes miserably mischievous. Take care.

4 comments:

bananafish said...

Fun with words! Love it!

Anonymous said...

The written word as told by Vicki. We take it to be gospel! Just punning around here-not trying to be sacrilegious.

I love the fact that you are so willing to teach us.

Anonymous said...

How about Missouri...I'm just being obstreperous. Anon.

Anonymous said...

Anyone starting to feel like we are in another country????

I'm BACK!!!

I don't recollect any conversation of Vicki at the gym while I was gone? Or did I miss it?

We had a good time but very little sleep!!!

Played a game of Scrabble ~ but I warned everyone ahead of time "I play to lose". Besides it was nearly midnight and who wants to think then???