Dear Editor,
The English language is a twisted thing as exposed in Doc Reynolds letter of Sept. 26. (Columnist, and many others, misusing abhor.)
His exploration of abhor was enlightening and humbling, but it strikes me that he missed a few points. For instance, abhor is pronounced somewhat like "a bore" once the H has been scared out of it. There is plenty around Dufferin to scare the H out of things, especially in an election year. As well, abhorred should not be confused with similar sounding phrases such as "I have a bored hole in my head." (This to go along with the normal ones already there, I suppose.).
However, lest the condition of my head makes me abhorrent to you, let me quickly change hats. Abhor is the evil twin to adore, something we are all familiar with. For instance, the one who adored us in first year Humber College abhorred us a year later, or vice versa if you ended up married.
Doug, your next assignment is to use the word synergy. That should draw Brett out again. Keep it up guys, my television is broken and these are words worth knowing.
Don Hayward,
Shelburne
It's also a bit like adhere, with a backwards b. Kinda makes you feel unglued.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteAccidently found this here. I will have to bookmark you blog. I don't pretend to be a writer or a good user of english. Hoever, even though I poked fun at your comments I agree with you. People who make their living with words should at least work hard to use them correctly. I prefer humour to respond to these issues. For me the test is if we can actually understand what they are saying. As you know this slowly corrodes old meanings and usages and should not be used as an excuse for lazy thinking and poor training. All the best. Don