The Connection
On October 25th, I referred to myself here as the dark horse in My Little Pony Land. While writing that post I couldn't remember if the name was My Little Pony, or My Pretty Pony, and so looked it up (turns out it’s been both) – while researching I was overcome with nostalgia, and spent ten minutes browsing photos of the plastic ponies I had growing up - including the unicorn kind. Before I finished publishing the new post, an e-mail came in from a missed friend containing a link to a video called “Charlie the Unicorn.” I never think about unicorns, so this coincidence was surprising and rather notable.
In that same October 25th post, I used the phrase “nothing is how it seems.” On October 26th, I opened my word-of-the-day e-mail from Merriam-Webster Online to discover the definition of the word “specious,” which read as follows (pay particular attention to the “Did you know?” section:
Several days ago a new and unfamiliar acquaintance wrote “the Archangel Michael put a knot in the string of luck for love.” The week prior I had recollected a powerful dream from years ago in which I had directly addressed a being that I took to be a guardian angel with the phrase, “that was you, Michael, wasn’t it?” in reference to a real act of love toward me a day or two prior. He responded, “yes.”October 26 – “specious” M-W word of the day
The Word of the Day for October 26 is:
specious \SPEE-shuss\ adjective
1 : having deceptive attraction or allure
*2 : having a false look of truth or genuineness : sophistic
Example sentence:
From the get-go Shelly felt that Clark's claim was specious, but he insisted he was telling the truth and she couldn't at first prove otherwise.
Did you know?
"Appearances can be deceptive." "Things are not always as they seem." Like these familiar proverbs, the word "specious" attests that English speakers can be a skeptical lot when it comes to trusting outward appearances. "Specious" traces to the Latin word "speciosus," meaning "beautiful" or "plausible," and Middle English speakers used it to mean "visually pleasing." But by the 17th century, "specious" had begun to suggest an attractiveness that was superficial or deceptive, and, subsequently, the word's neutral "pleasing" sense faded into obsolescence.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
There are more. I am not afraid.
posted by Leigha at 6:03 PM
5 Comments:
I cannot but admire someone who subsbribes to a service that will enable him or her to learn a new word every day.
There is an ad campaign that promotes the use of correct Spanish in Puerto Rico. Their motto translates to: "Defective language, defective thinking".
I couldn't agree more.
ah-HA! So there's a Puerto Rican tie! Hence 'PR' and 'islander' mashed together. You told me that the PR had to do with Public Relations, but perhaps the PR stands for both. If it does, that means I can probably narrow down the possibilities to about 119,019 people (about 1/32 of the entire Puerto Rican population). The guess that one in every 32 people works in PR is rather arbitrary, but I'm okay with that.
Now I just have to figure out the significance of the '13.'
Getting warmer... :)
Please don't let my curiosity scare you away - I just like your comments, and therefore would like to know their author.
No, wait - I just went back and re-read your "I'm from PR, just like Q" comment. You meant Puerto Rico, not Public Relations (I had PR on the brain because of Q's new job, which is actually advertising design or something). It's late, I'm tired. I shall stop typing now.
Adept at words AND numbers?!?!?
Seems I am not the only one full of surprises...
13 is my lucky number... no other significance
Thanks for your take on my comments...
Could tell you more, but for reasons that will be eventually obvious, not in this venue...
The last of your post reminded me of an experience I had as a young teenager. A vision of an angel.
Isn't it funny how something random in your day, like another's blog, can spark a powerful memory?
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