One of life's little epiphanies gave me a good wallop a while back, reading about adjectives.
Adjectives are kind of neat. You can take two different adjectives that mean exactly the same thing, insert one or the other into a sentence, and completely change the flavour:
My Uncle Paul is spendthrift. My Uncle Paul is cheap.
My boss is opinionated. My boss is bullheaded.
My wife is conscientious. My wife is fussy.
Sure, it can be argued that each pair of adjectives has distinctly different meanings, but every last one of us goes around with preconceived notions of what each word means. Cheap's a great example. Being cheap, in the sense of being a tightwad, is usually perceived as a bad quality in this consumerist society, but who hasn't admired frugality at some point? Still, you hear "cheap" and a whole list of complimentary or not-so-complimentary meanings floods into your head. Usually mostly one or the other.It's all in how you look at things, how your life expe…
Adjectives are kind of neat. You can take two different adjectives that mean exactly the same thing, insert one or the other into a sentence, and completely change the flavour:
My Uncle Paul is spendthrift. My Uncle Paul is cheap.
My boss is opinionated. My boss is bullheaded.
My wife is conscientious. My wife is fussy.
Sure, it can be argued that each pair of adjectives has distinctly different meanings, but every last one of us goes around with preconceived notions of what each word means. Cheap's a great example. Being cheap, in the sense of being a tightwad, is usually perceived as a bad quality in this consumerist society, but who hasn't admired frugality at some point? Still, you hear "cheap" and a whole list of complimentary or not-so-complimentary meanings floods into your head. Usually mostly one or the other.It's all in how you look at things, how your life expe…