A Word In Your Shell-Like*

*For those who don’t know British idioms, ‘shell-like’ refers to the ear.  Some Brits are too lazy to finish their sentences with a three-letter word.

Words have a power all their own (Photo credit: Lynne Hand)

Today’s post is about words.

One

One of my 101/1001 challenges is to find 26 words – one for each letter of the alphabet – which are new to me; and then to use them in 26 consecutive posts (jokes excluded).  You may find me a little ambisinister in the execution, but that’s just the way it goes.  See if you can guess what today’s word is.

Words (Photo credit: sirwiseowl) Or in your online dictionary…

Two

The reason today’s post is about words is that I suddenly find myself unable to pronounce ‘laptop’.  I keep saying ‘loptop’.  I have no idea why, though I suspect it may be a divine slap on the wrist for last week’s post in which I wrote:

• If you mispronounce a word in my presence, I will not hear anything you say after that.

The Hub can’t pronounce ‘hilarious’ without falling over his tongue and my friend told me this morning she can’t pronounce ‘proselytise’ (although, let’s be honest – who can?).

What words can you not pronounce?

Three

This is for the writers amongst you, but more on that later.

I just looked up among/amongst because I was pretty sure I had used it correctly but I wanted to know the difference.  Turns out I’m ‘quaint’.

Maeve Maddox at Daily Writing Tips says:

I first heard amongst used when I went to live in England. To my ear it sounds quaint and very “British.”  I especially like it in the expression “to put the cat amongst the pigeons.”

She goes on to asseverate:

If there ever was a difference between the two words, it is lost now […] For American speakers of English, the question is irrelevant. Americans say among.

I hope that British speakers will continue to use amongst whenever they feel like it.

Thank you, Maeve.  We will. 🙂

So this is what he learned at that internet marketing seminar (Photo credit: Graela)

Four

This is for the writers amongst you, but you have to live in Britain and use the word ‘amongst’ without blushing:

Arvon is running a competition; the prize is a free residential course.  

Click this link and go to page 130 of the brochure for details.

Five

Time for an experiment: I included the cartoon because it amused me, but I think I’m going to try adding ‘boobies’ to my tags to see if there’s any truth in its assertion.  I’ll let you know if it works.  

Six

That’s it.  I’ve run out of words.