Brown Motion

Take stump.  It is a cricket equipment and has some specific connotation to the sport, yet it is used colloquially to indicate how vexing the English language can be. Language has one purpose.  To communicate.  Whether to the present audience or to one in the future.  It manifests itself in the form of pictures (going back in time) to audio signals (sent into space).  Most commonly it is the written format that we exchange information in. Here are some common word pairs in written form, where even the pros find themselves in a quandary.  This does not address the pronunciation aspect of words which I can write about in a separate blog. Grammar could take up a book unto itself. Not that I propound to be an expert at any of the above but as I have said before: my blog my rules. Speaking of using words that confuse us - Use or Usage Advice or Advise Principal or Principle Antivenom or Antivenin In spite or Inspite Watch or Clock Stay or L...

One leg at a time.  This is the oft heard man made modern cliche.  At conferences and in self help guides some yuppie is always making a reference to this apparently common trait for males and in some cases females. Hey that Sheryl Sandberg may be rich and famous but she too puts on her pants - one leg at a time. Well I think it is pure nonsense. For starters some of the best minds in this universe never put on pants.  Think Aryabhatta or Ramanujan.  Not sure what Aryabhatta wore but historic texts on Ramanujan had him in a wrap around cloth below his waist most of the time.  When he went to England he was fooled into wearing the above mentioned pants but it was not his primary choice. Ancient Greek philosophers from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle wore tunics.  Even the first marathon runner Pheidippides ran it with a simple flowing garb on. Great warriors from Alexander to Genghis too wore skirts from all the pictures I have seen.  How t...

1. What does 'holy shit' mean? Esp when Americans use the term. I can see it being holy and shit as in cow dung in India but I suspect it means something else here. 2. Okie Dokie - what is that all about? Slang? Some tirbal exchange that stuck without facebook? 3. High Five - then on the flip side - other than making for good comedy in Seinfeld I am baffled by this ritual amongst Americans too. What might the origins of this be? 4. B'jeezus - I guess its a derivative of a call to the almighty but then again used in the context of 'scared the b'jeezus out', am not entirely sure about how it got in in the first place. 5. WTF (spelled out) or any variation of the 'F' word (probably the most popular of the F words in the entire Merriam Webster) is by far the most bizzare of them all.. Now one might conclude that this blog is F'd up too.