(no subject)
School is going well. I don't feel nearly as inadquate about my classes. I love the fact that I'm able to have good discussions with classmates regardless of age or experience--for all of us, education is not about arriving, but continuing.
I have decided to define the English language in two rules, much like a CS Lewis-type set-up:
1. The English language is governed by several detailed rules, with corollaries and exceptions attached to many of them.
2. Native speakers of the English language break the rules.
At dinner, I had some mashed potatoes and corn, so I decided to mix them together since corn is hard to eat with a fork by itself. A spoon would have seemed silly. I haven't mixed veggies into my potato since I was little. I remember mixing them once at my grandmother's house.
After dinner, I saw a dirt pile across from the Allen House ("which, contrary to popular thought, is not haunted"). It reminded me of when I was little and the yard was dug up. We weren't supposed to play in the dirt piles because we'd get our clothes dirty. Of course, we did play in the dirt piles. What kid wouldn't?
Multiple sources are predicted that we're going to get bamboozled by the weather. I decided to look up this word to see what the meaning was. It has the connotation of deceiving by surprise. I'm going to argue that my usage is correct for two reasons: (1) a lot of us thought we'd get away with no snow for the rest of the season, and (2) it sounds cool, reminscent of "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle."
It will be a glorious day when ginormous makes it into the Oxford English Dictionary. Perhaps Will Ferrell will have that piece of etymology to himself.