vocabulary showdown!
in a potentially recurring feature, we'll pit two words against one another and see which one lives to populate another sentence based on our arbitrary and ephemeral whims.
today's battle: 'forfend' vs. 'slather'
a couple of action verbs go toe-to-toe. the archaic forfend - meaning to avert, forbid and/or protect - evokes the haughtiness of formal British society while slather - to use large amounts or spread thickly - conjures visions of joe six-pack with ketchup dribbling down his chin. not to promote classism, but this is no contest. also, forfend is a lot more fun and dramatic to say. victory!
on a somewhat related subject, why do journalists, et. al. simply append "-gate" onto the end of every scandal (Ms. Jackson's "Nipplegate" being the latest example)? "gate" is not a Latin root for "miasma" or "of dubious morality". i know it comes from the Watergate scandal originally, but since then it's been lazily applied to any whiff of impropriety. whatever happened to the days of "the Teapot Dome Scandal" or "the Red Scare"? those sound like a lot more fun to learn about than "Travelgate".
Comments
Your forfend vs. slather thing is very strange.
As far as the gate thing, I agree. I had had enough of it after the whole 9th grade Mrs. Dixon book report cheating scandal that she dubbed "Book Reportgate." Ugh.
Or maybe I was just mad that she took half of my points away from my spring book report on "Roots" after letting Ben Dillingham copy my fall book report on "The Day Lincoln Was Shot." Poor Ben- he got a zero.
Posted by: Dan | March 5, 2004 05:12 PM
Slather is a much cooler word. Forfend sounds like you have your tongue stuck to the top of your mouth and you're trying to say something else. South End, maybe, or poor friend.
I must term your mishandling of this vocabulary showdown "Slathergate."
Posted by: jim | March 10, 2004 11:56 PM