Confusion is spreading!

Alicia's lost her internet for today, so I'll confess something...

Defenestration. Excellent word, easy to say -- but why would you need a word specifically for removing windows? Does it really happen that often? You'll see old brick buildings with a patch of younger bricks where they've obviously been defenestrated...

Oh, wait... throwing people out of windows. Not the most common thing either, but hey.

What words trip you up? Which ones do you feel a need to double-check every time you use them?

Sticks and Stones

Two girls face each other across the foggy battle field.

With silent acknowledgment, they raise their sticks swords.

"En guarde!" The blood thirsty yell could be heard echoing across the barren field. A challenge!

The clash of weapons rings out, filling the air! The challenge is met! The battle has been joined!

The girls circle each other, their swords grasped double fisted. Beating each other until their writs are numb with shock and their shoulders are aching with strain.

Finally, the younger girl starts to weaken. The elder sees her chance and moves in for the kill.

She draws her sword high above her head and swings it around, sticking the death stroke.

"Touche!" She yells!

*******

My sisters and I used to play this game all the time. And I'm not sure how it started, but for the longest time, we thought that's what you were supposed to say when you 'struck' someone with a sword. Fencing style.

I can just see my mother laughing her ass off in the kitchen window now.

Because it would be hilarious watching kids poke each other with sticks of wood yelling, "TOUCHE!" At the top of our lungs.

Were there any fun word games you used to screw up as a kid?

I swear, Fantasy books make up words.

There's a huge drawback to reading a lot of fantasy.

First off. Try playing Words with Friends with some of the words In G.R.R. Martin's books. It breaks the game.

Secondly, you get used to reading 'fake' words and just rolling with it. Ascertaining the meaning by either the author telling you outright, or by clues in the text.

The drawback here is that when you come across a REAL word that you mistake as being fake and you make up a definition for it...you have nothing that will tell you that this is wrong.

One of the biggest Real Word Masquerading As Fake that I can remember is the word Penultimate.  

I know. Pretty standard, right? Except that in most of the fantasy books I read it was followed by some noun, or something pretty major and game changing.

"This was Thor's penultimate challenge before he was kicked out of Olympus for good!"

WHAT? Whoa! That's pretty heavy! And then some crazy challenge would happen... chaos would ensue. Stuff and crazyness...and Thor gets some woman pregnant (isn't that the story? or am I confusing my gods here?) And gets kicked off Olympus.

And then again in some choose your own adventure books...there was always a Penultimate Choice. Which at this point in the story, again, no matter which way you chose...Chaos and anarchy! Terror, terror, terror death and hell. Then... The End.

So in my brain this word came to mean Very Important.

Which is close. Sort of. But not really. And for most of my life, (right up until I saw it on my SAT's, and I almost said "What the Fuck?" out loud...) I really thought it was a made up fantasy word.

Have you ever made up a definition for a word and not realized your mistake until much later on in life?

 Preferably not when you're taking a placement exam for college...

Wherein my amazing knowledge of German Screws me over

Growing up, I was forced had the AMAZING opportunity to take Latin for four years.

It was A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Though I can say, without the least bit of sarcasm...that it did help with my ability to learn how to break words down to their roots, and thereby determine their meanings. It does NOT help with spelling. At all.

Just a side note.

In case you were wondering.

Anyway. The Latin teacher we had Also knew German (as well as 5 other languages...). This came into play because she would mutter to herself in German when she got especially upset. But it was this odd mix of English, German and I think Italian. (Not sure). But teaching 4 kids Latin couldn't have been very, um, fun. Shall we say. And one word she would mutter over and over was Schadenfreude. Which I thought was German. And I deduced the meaning of this word by putting my Amazing powers of Latin deduction and word-breaking-down skills to work *insert majestic heroic music here*...

Coming up with...!

Afraid of Shadows.

Obvi.

Which is how I used this word for YEARS. Because this is a pretty kick ass word. Granted I spelled it wrong as well. Because phonetically it's spelled shadenfroyda. But still. Kick ass word!

I remember very well when I found out I had this word wrong. Of course it was my older sister who told me...or rather Laughed hysterically in my face and said, "You dork dumbass! That's not what that means!"

"Well! If you're so smart...what does it mean then?"
"If you don't know I'm not going to tell you!"
"You don't know do you!"
"Do so!"
"Do not!"
"It means you enjoy other people's pain!"
"...huh?"
"Sigh..."

Which come to think of it...that whole conversation was pretty ironic...

I think I was 12 at the time. This concept meant nothing to me at the time.

Still. A Kick ass word. And a concept I use quite regularly in my characters.

Can you think of any examples of Schadenfreude in literature or popular fiction?

Oh, Alanis

I think I was in High School when Alanis Morissette's Song "Ironic" came out. And got immediately overplayed on the local radio station. To be honest I wasn't a HUGE Alanis fan to begin with, but hearing that song over and over and over. And over.

And over.

And OVER. Didn't help.

But what it DID do, or so I thought, was help me understand what Irony was.

False.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Irony is Not a Black fly in your Chardonnay. That's just gross. And shitty bad luck. Or rain on your wedding day is actually supposed to be good luck. Non-Smoking sign on your cigarette break COULD be argued as good luck as it's trying to save your life! But essentially, is just bad luck. As is just about EVERYTHING else in that song.

Bad luck is not irony.

And I was using that word wrong for YEARS, thanks to that bitch.

I can't remember the circumstance when I figured it out, but it was like a light-bulb going off.

Irony is many things and somewhat hard to explain. But first off it implies the opposite of what it actually states, generally used to explain something that is totally contrary. (A huge dog named "Tiny".)

It can be a statement made by one person to another that is exactly the opposite of what they wanted to convey.
"Her head is soft as concrete."
An identical twin saying "You're Ugly!" to his twin.

One of the most famous uses of Irony in literature was in Romeo and Juliet. The whole Death Scene....(Spoiler Alert...they both die...)

When Romeo returns to Verona and finds Juliet drugged. Thinking her dead he kills himself. She wakes up, finds him dead and kills herself with a knife.

Other Literary examples would be banned books that are constantly on the top 100 best seller list, like Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Other examples:

~ Posting a video on Facebook about how boring and useless Facebook is.
~ Vegans wearing Leather
~ A Firehouse on Fire
~ A class on "Planning and Scheduling" getting cancelled due to poor planning.
~ "Stand By Your Man" was sung by Tammy Wynette who was married six times.
~ The dictionary entry for "Short" is really long.

So there you go!

Now that you have that song stuck in your head...

Can you think of any other examples of Irony?