4/10/2013

Incredulous . . . and Ignorant

While laboring over a piece of writing recently, I learned the word distain is considered archaic. Incredulous. I was simply incredulous.

Archaic? What? It seems to me I read the word distain all the time, and believe me, I am not reading Chaucer in ye olde English.
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When was distain deemed archaic and who get to decide? Does someone examine every word printed every year and determine some perfectly innocent words are not used enough so they are sent to word purgatory and dubbed archaic?

I could not get this out of my mind and could not believe I was using archaic language. Granted, I can't claim to know the current slang and buzz words, but I am not that far behind the times.

I had to check one more time. Did I just misread the online dictionary? No, distain is actually archaic. But, uh oh, I looked a little more closely. The definition was referring to discoloration. Confusion, great confusion.

And then the light bulb went on. Not distain, disdain. The word I wanted to use was disdain. I spelled the word wrong! I traveled the road from incredulity to a shaming awareness of my own ignorance shaking my head the whole way.


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7 comments:

  1. JenApril 10, 2013 at 11:07 AM

    I think sometimes our eyes play tricks on us!

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  2. Sue McPeakApril 10, 2013 at 11:29 AM

    For those of us who have a hard time with today's chopping, spelling and definitions of the written word...ie email,texting,tweeting, etc etc....it is Indeed Incredulous! Distain...online definition probably should have been...Da-Stain.

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  3. Christine LondonApril 10, 2013 at 1:06 PM

    Lol...cute story. I had an editor from a big six publisher recent tell me that Diana Gabaldon is (in not so many words) 'archaic'. "Who do you read was her question.

    I think Diana would be bemused that her multi-million selling series that is still not complete (Outlander, et al) is defunct because she began writing it many years ago. Does fabulous writing ever go out of style? Pleeze.

    Thanks for the fun blog.

    Regards,

    Christine London

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  4. Marianne (Mare) Baker BallApril 10, 2013 at 4:05 PM

    hee-hee. When I first starting reading this, I thought, she's got the spelling wrong...does she mean disdain? I think it's crazy that slang words make it into the dictionary. The English language is the nuttiest. I'm glad it's my first language - I would never want to have to learn it as a second one!
    from The Dugout

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  5. UnknownApril 10, 2013 at 5:34 PM

    Hahahaha. Yeah I picked up on what was happening as you moved along. I love your finish. I do have to laugh at myself so much of the time. How many misunderstandings cause us so much angst in our journey. The comical ones are much easier to bear. Thanks for the fun post. God bless, Maria from Delight Directed Living

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  6. AndreaApril 10, 2013 at 8:04 PM

    Nope I did not see where this was going...hee hee hee!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Patricia StolteyApril 10, 2013 at 11:42 PM

    That is so fun...I thought you were going to tell us the word disdain was now politically incorrect and I never even noticed you'd looked up distain instead. Now I feel silly...

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