A number of little thoughts keep bugging me, wanting their own fifteen minutes of fame but never becoming big enough for an entire column of their own. In no particular order, I’m laying them at your feet to consider or ignore as you wish.

I’ve often mentioned ways that language changes over time, ignited by usage, technical advances, cultural evolution – whatever. Though few words seem to ever achieve total annihilation, many have acquired new meanings or undergone changes in spelling – several within my lifetime. Take the word “Halloween” for instance. My elementary school spelling tests required an apostrophe between the two e’s since the letter v had been left out of what was originally meant to be a contraction for “All Hallows Eve” another apostrophe has vanished along with the contraction ’til, meaning “until” which has now become “till” thus eliminating a clear and useful word and adding another definition to another which already had more than one meaning.

Several words have had their definitions altered by simple misuse over the years and it seems that few people know when to use them properly. One such word is “momentarily” which does not mean “soon” but rather indicates brevity. When we are informed that “Our guest speaker will be here momentarily,” we are being told that the speaker will be there for a short time, not that he will arrive soon. I suspect that, before long, the official definition of that word will have been altered to agree with the common usage. Another word quite likely to suffer the same fate is “nauseous” which presently means “causing nausea” not “feeling nauseated.” Someone who claims to be nauseous is admitting that they make other people sick – a sad thing to have to admit to. I’m beginning to think that we could eliminate both of those troublesome words and the language would be much more accurate. According to Mrs. Cotter who taught eighth grade English, that’s what grammar is all about – clarity.

There are some words that contain unnecessary letters that are neither pronounced nor utilized by poor spellers. Lincoln, an important name in history, is unlikely to have the second l eliminated officially even though many people already omit it. There are other words that could benefit from makeovers. ‘Wednesday” will probably lose its first d as people have already forgotten about Woden. And “psychology” as well as a few other words, could do without that troublesome silent p. For instance “pseudo” and “Psalms.” The g in “light” is already on its way out since we seem to be accepting “lite” with little fuss. There have been many crusaders in favor of phonetic spelling over time, but I expect it will come about gradually through usage and not as a major adjustment.

I can’t help noticing that some advertisers are making an effort to entertain us with commercials that amuse us in subtle ways. Sometime during the 1970’s and 80’s, there was a rash of fairly entertaining ads featuring well-known actors in a sort of mini-sitcoms such as Michael J Fox going to great lengths to attract the attention of a new resident in his apartment building. James Garner and Mariette Hartley made around 259 commercials for Polaroid during the 1970’s and 80’s. They. played a married couple so convincingly that many viewers believed they were actually husband and wife. Then there was the ad that probably started it all – Mr. Whipple pleading with the ladies to “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” More recently, I especially like the Afrin ad that depicts an artist working on a drawing that resembles himself as well as the person posing for him. On the reverse side of that particular coin, I find one of the more inane ads to be the supposed news reporter asking a suspicious-looking person, “Are you a scam artist?” Duh-uh! What reply would anybody expect?

I seem to be a bit uninformed when it comes to the commercials asking for donations to the fund for Wounded Warriors, however. The link between 9/11 and disabled servicemen is a bit vague. I know many other heroes lost their lives, their health, dreams and their futures that day, but . . .?.