Skip to content

Our Digital Dust

Reflections on three fathers' experience and lives for our kids

February 24, 2107 – Random Friday Thoughts

admin February 24, 2017 1 Comment

Living in the Washington DC area gives most commuters a unique opportunity to think, listen to books on tape, podcasts, or their favorite music, or just simmer with road rage. That’s because most commuters (like myself) spend 10 hours or more a week in the car going to and from work.  I use my time (mostly) to listen to books or podcasts.

While listening I’m often struck by the occasional English word and how we use it. Today I was listening to the book The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why. I was listening to this book because of the reactions of the characters on the TV show The Walking Dead.  I wanted to know if people were really that stupid during disasters (the answer is yes, we mostly are) and what physiologically causes those reactions. I may write about that later and we can go down that rabbit hole, but today’s post is about words.

The author of the above-mentioned book, Amanda Ripley, used the word “overwhelmed” when describing the emotions of some of the victims of recent disasters.  I pondered the word – overwhelmed – and its opposite, underwhelmed, and wondered why we don’t say we are whelmed?  The definition of whelmed is (according to Webster’s) “…to be overcome in thought or feeling.”  So now I wonder: why overwhelmed?  Couldn’t we just say we are whelmed? The co-authors of this blog and fellow linguists are also weird this way, since we had to think about a word’s many possible meanings to translate it.  We are also picky about misuse of English words; one of our favorite English non-words was “irregardless” (even spell check hates this word). “Irregardless” has the same meaning as regardless – so why not use regardless?  I now find that overwhelmed (a real word) strikes the same chord with me that “irregardless” does. Just use whelmed; to say overwhelmed is simply redundant.

Friday rant complete – I will now contemplate further on why the writers of The Walking Dead seem to always find the worst in humanity.  Last note – where are all the Special Operations soldiers in The Walking Dead universe? Aren’t they the most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse? I mean – a housewife, a redneck, a redneck sheriff, and a wanna-be samurai survive but not one Green Beret, SEAL, Ranger, Marine?  Really?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Daily Post

One Comment

  1. Bob Hale says:
    February 24, 2017 at 10:42 pm

    : ?. Works for me.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

February 2017
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan   Mar »

Recent Posts

  • January 24, 2021 – Carpe Annos Singulos (Seize the Year!)
  • A New Day
  • Welcome to a New Year?
  • January 3, 2021 – We are back for 2021!
  • April 18, 2018 – 51 and still a child

Recent Comments

  • June Hale on January 3, 2021 – We are back for 2021!
  • June Hale on January 3, 2021 – We are back for 2021!
  • Bob Hale on Welcome to a New Year?
  • ROBERT HALE on January 3, 2021 – We are back for 2021!
  • Sharon M Hale on January 3, 2021 – We are back for 2021!

Archives

  • January 2021
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017

Our Twitter Feed

Follow @@ourdigitaldust

Digital Dust
@ourdigitaldust

  • We have an updated post at #ourdigitaldust! Post Edited: January 24, 2021 – Carpe Annos Singulos (Seize the Year!) https://t.co/RUSFg3hOVa
    about 2 days ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: January 24, 2021 – Carpe Annos Singulos (Seize the Year!) https://t.co/RUSFg3hOVa
    about 2 days ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: A New Day https://t.co/TyMm5AMnEp
    about 6 days ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: Welcome to a New Year? https://t.co/xdeWTPs78Q
    about 2 weeks ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: April 18, 2018 – 51 and still a child https://t.co/USQ29VbhSu
    about 3 years ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: February 23, 2018 – If I Were the Devil https://t.co/frPKB0lwdh
    about 3 years ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: February 9, 2018 – That Forever Person https://t.co/SXqcfSebuz
    about 3 years ago
  • We have a new post at #ourdigitaldust! New post: February 7, 2018 – Digging Archaeological Trenches https://t.co/FuXWyqpBE3
    about 3 years ago
  • We have an updated post at #ourdigitaldust! Post Edited: January 26, 2018, Natura naturans https://t.co/va0zxj1jF3
    about 3 years ago
  • We have an updated post at #ourdigitaldust! Post Edited: January 26, 2017, Natura naturans https://t.co/va0zxj1jF3
    about 3 years ago
Copyright © 2021. Our Digital Dust
Powered By WordPress and Silver Quantum