Tuesday, October 08, 2013

2086 Hot Err



The other day a friend asked me: "What's another word for synonym?" It got me. It got the thesaurus in my Microsoft Word spellchecker too. When I right-clicked the word, the little window dropped down and said, "No Suggestions." 

Very unusual if you ask me. How many times do you say to someone, What's a synonym for...? Often enough, you'd think we'd come up with another word. If only because synonym is so Latiny. And hard to spell. 

We've done it with homonym: "Soundalike." I have a theory that things we feel more uncomfortable with we have more word choices for. "Divorce" has quite a few synonyms. As do most sins. And the words we use to describe procreation are downright endless. Or the words we use to describe acts of excretions. 

So maybe the word homonym has more alternatives just because of its first four letters. Some residual discomfort with the word homo. Just a theory. Not just fearful of homosexuality generally but even the word for it. Homohomophobic or homophonicphobic.

On a different train of thought, sometimes folks are not only uncomfortable with words, they use the wrong ones altogether. Not totally different though, since the guy I'm referring to, Vladimir Putin, is a registered homophobe. 

Anyhow, he's also an idiot, and he gave this great quote to prove it the other day. He was talking about the supposedly fair recent Moscow Mayoral election. And after saying it was "legitimate, transparent and regulated," he added "Such a thing has never happened in our country before."

My first thought was, "Like, um, when you were elected?"

I'm that way with all the hot air that comes out of his mouth. Perhaps because Putin is a homonym for pootin'. 

And, oh yeah, a synonym for air excretion.

America, ya gotta love it.

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