Two words that I recently encountered have piqued my interest. The first one is:
meretricious
adjective:
1. Appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry.
2. Based on pretense or insincerity.
Until I looked up that word I assumed that it meant having merit or being valuable. I was wrong.
The other word is:
invalid
Of course that word is actually two different words each having differing pronunciations and differing definitions.
in-VAL-uhd
adjective:
definition -- not valid
IN-vuh-luhd
noun:
definition -- impaired
Words, words, words... always fascinating.
Friday, July 30, 2010
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Interesting and sad to note the implication of the adjectival form of invalid when one considers its use to describe the nominal form of that same word. No?
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