Ahh, words

Funny things have been happening around here lately.

At the town council meeting I was at a little while ago, all kinds of big words were being thrown around. I heard several mentions to "frontage" and "flankage," which are ways of measuring people's yards.

Then I heard a man who was trying to sound impressive say "irregardless," which just so happens to not be a word. He meant to say regardless and the mayor gave a little smirk when he said that.

Nearing the end of the meeting when there was only one thing left to discuss, the mayor was reading from his briefing papers and said something that sounded like this, "blah, blah, blah in camera blah, blah...".

When I didn't get up to leave, the town administrator explained that "in camera" means closed to the public and that I, the only member of the public at the meeting, would have to leave. I find it almost too funny that I was dismissed in Latin.

Today I discovered mistakes in a story I had written about a family where I referred to them by their last name, but with an "s" added to show I was talking about both family members.

It was edited to have an apostrophe before the "s" because "it just looks better." (Even though an apostrophe after a name means that something belongs to that person - ie. the Jones' cat.) I'm getting to be quite good at undoing the mistakes people put into my stories.

Also today I was editing someone else's work for the paper and saw that the word "contentious" was used where the word should have been "conscientious." I'm actually disappointed with myself for fixing it.

After my many observations, here is the conclusion I have come to: pompous words sound stupid whether or not they are used properly.