September 27, 2011

Here's Mud in Your Eye!

I love learning new words. Sometimes when I look words up, I find out that they don't mean what I thought they did or that I've been saying them wrong for years. Again, I challenge you to use these in daily conversation, then come back and post comments on how your colleagues reacted. As usual, my source is dictionary.com. No, I'm not confessing which words I didn't have right. I don't want to blush again.

 Akimbo [uh-kim-boh]

 –adjective, adverb

with hand on hip and elbow bent outward: to stand with arms akimbo.

 Quagmire [kwag-mahyuhr] 

–noun

1. an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the tread; a bog.
2. a situation from which extrication is very difficult: a quagmire of financial indebtedness.
3. anything soft or flabby.

 Curmudgeon [ker-muhj-uhn]

–noun

a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.

The curmudgeon stood in the quagmire with his arms akimbo.

2 comments:

  1. I've always thought the Mire in quagmire was pronounced like Wire, good to find out I have been wrong. ha.. An investigation would have told me, but ya know, that's too much trouble. ;-) Thank you teacher.

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  2. I always pronounced it like wire too. I think most people do.

    ~Marie

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