a-loof: (adverb) at a distance, esp. in feeling or interest; apart.
a-loof: (adjective) reserved or reticent; indifferent; disinterested.
For the record, I do take requests. Whether I do them justice remains to be seen...
Fellow blogger/Torontonian/ex-pat P.Dotter Meghan presented me with that ever-ponderable, chicken-or-egg question: which comes first, word overuse or definition oversaturation?
(Or perhaps said question was rhetorical and my small-town naivety is rearing her pretty little golden-curled head and batting those long lashes at life and smiling and saying, "Wha...?")
Regardless, it got me to thinking (oh thought, you will be the death of me! Glorious, thinky death!) and of course I came up with some long-winded, well-worded, hyphen-filled response...but when it came time to put it down here, it just felt wrong. Really, what I think is that our vocabulary is shaped by our surroundings. (I guess I'm going with "definition oversaturation" here.) For better or worse, we start to say and think and feel whatever it is we're surrounded by. Put yourself in a negative situation, with grumbly people, and before long you'll be bitching to anyone who will listen. Just ask anyone who served with me. Of course, each situation is unique to each person involved; some people loved serving tables. It just happened to bring out my inner pessimist.
And it's not really a surprise that "aloof" is an overused word for someone living in Toronto. Cause really, there's oodles of distance and indifference and feeling-apartness in this city. But one can only start to overuse a word when it is omnipresent (okay, I borrowed this from Meghan...what does that say?) in one's life. So, yeah...the egg comes first. For sure.
Right now I'm using "stupid" and "idiot" quite a bit - how's that for a brief snapshot into my life?
1 comment:
Brilliant. Blame the egg. Got it. & thanks for the link-love. Drinks soon? I understand you will not be hosting a SITC-launch-party...but, um, brunchables? Kensington Sundays?
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