No wonder we're going nuts...

it's very clear to me now. I know that the American, and for that matter the global, economy has tanked, the healthcare system is so far beyond faulty (it IS the worst in the world, EXCEPT for every other...hurray for us) I don't know if there's a good word for it, and we are running out of fuel (and here's a shock in case you didn't know. Even if you manage to be able to afford a hybrid or electric car, there is a problem that someone should have seen coming because it's a REAL "Homer moment...doh" in my opinion. We don't have the electrical power capacity to fuel even a fair amount of electric cars, which means that even if we put in fueling ports at home and all over, if enough people switch over, even if the price of "filling the tank" is negligible, the drain on the power plants is NOT.) There are rolling and full on black outs NOW, so how did they NOT see this coming? There's a bunch of jobs right there. Yeah, we already have coal miners but we need a BUNCH more, and a safer environment for them all,  then we'll need a LOT more power plants and someone to build them, and by the way, could someone please come up with a good synthetic fuel in the meantime? I think that the "Back to the Future" movies had a kernel of a good idea using organic garbage as fuel. You could "tank up" right after a breakfast that includes toast crust, egg shells, coffee grounds and bacon grease.This stuff heats up the ground where it smolders in land fills, a natural source of heat, DO something with it, scientific America! We DO have individual compost piles all over the country already for organic gardening, take the next step, please. Of course, I don't know what exactly people who care about their weight
would use..Grapefruit rinds and stale humus maybe, but that is WAY down the road. Just find something already here to use, that's all. We know, although it's sort of weird, that a calorie is a unit of energy. I get that when you eat, you give your body the fuel to DO things, but if a calorie IS a unit of energy, and leftovers are food still, WHY can't we find a way to USE that tossed out energy for other things besides the human body? Is it because the human body is way too complex a machine that we can't make any other sort of "engine" like it? I don't think so. I think there is answer out there. But as usual, I am off my original thought which was this...

I think a large part of so many people going nuts lately is the English language. Did you know that the only language harder to learn is Chinese? WE think it's easy as adults, but try to remember back to school. Just this one rule is enough to make you drink... "I before E, except after C". That is NOT a strict rule, because it also applies not only to C, but D,H and W, as in deign, height and weight! Then there is the problem of homonyms. "They're on their way to the mall over there to do an errand and pick up two new items that they knew were due in soon". That was an example of just a few of them. THEN there is the problem of all these new words popping up, and words that, although they've been around for years, are being misused by the general public, and I was guilty of it myself the other day, by accident. But since I am a word herder and spelling and definition Nazi, I will, if in doubt, whip out "Old blue" , my dictionary from 1972 and look something up. And I had that feeling about this word, exacerbate. A lot of people are using it instead of exaggerate now, and it seemed wrong. Well, Exaggerate means: To heap up; to think, write or speak of (something) as greater than it is; overstate. 2. to increase or enlarge to an abnormal degree. To give an exaggerated account.  And Exacerbate means: (harsh, sour)To make more intense or bitter; aggravate (disease, pain, etc) 2. To exasperate. And so you don't have to look It up... Exasperate means: To irritate or annoy very much; vex; make angry; vex.  2. To intensify (a feeling, disease, etc, aggravate). And finally, Aggravate means: To make worse; make more burdensome, troublesome, etc. 2. To exasperate; annoy; vex. Finally! It DOES basically mean the same thing in a VERY circuitous (you can look that word up if you want to) way CAN be a substitute for exaggerate, if you just want to be a show off, and marginally correct.( I don't know if Alex Trebek would approve) BUT, my question really wasn't doesn't it mean something totally different (and really, it is fundamentally a medical term), but why did we feel the need to take this narrowly used word and exchange it for a word that was perfectly fine? Are we THAT bored and desperate for entertainment (now often referred to as "enhancement" or "enrichment")?  We have enrichment programs for small children and zoo animals, two beings that get bored easily. What happened to good old entertainment? In my days as a kid, we were entertained, and often told to find some way to entertain ourselves, as in "use your OWN imagination, which kids and zoo captives DO have, given a few "tools" laying about, as any mom who has taken her kid to the ER because they took a blanket, made a cape out of it, climbed to the roof of the house, and tried to fly, will tell you..we are dumbing down the country, people, broken arms or not. Now I don't mind progress that is not too hasty or harsh for no reason, but when you make perfectly good word obsolete, I don't know if I get why that's necessary. It's made knowing the language an ongoing sort of thing.(and yes, I know, words come and go, like "dude" has been doing since cowboy days, and has meant different things in each era)  I blame the people that dream up crossword puzzles. And I mean the truly challenging ones like the New York Times Sunday crossword. That thing is a nightmare. I'm totally intimidated by that it, BUT if you manage to survive it  and happen to play Scrabble or the new and wonderful Words with Friends, which is like chess by mail, you can take a week or more to finish a game,  you can learn a LOT of very short and obscure words. BUT, if you aren't particularly erudite, keeping up can be really tiring. We are going to end up with dictionaries that are too big to pick up. And I JUST recently addressed my worry about the future of real books, and here we already have online dictionaries with all the newest words, some of which come up on WWF (Words with Friends, NOT the World Wrestling Federation), and are ridiculous, like Clozes, really? And yet it won't accept Etc, go figure. You CAN use TV, though.
Good grief, I AM as wordy as my ex keeps telling me. Well, THAT is the bipolar and OCD brain for you. I take a tiny thing and run in twelve different directions with it...but that's another blog, right?
Thanks for tuning in, hope you enjoyed, learned something, or just maybe laughed. Perhaps next time we'll talk about expounding. But you have to admit I had a point in there somewhere.
Later,Dragonfly