Sunday, June 9, 2013

Playing with words like kids














In my last post I discussed finding the right word. It is fun to play with words and their apparent opposites. About a decade ago someone I worked with asked me if I’d ever seen a gruntled employee, and I replied that I hadn’t ever considered that being an opposite for dis-gruntled.





















A detergent is a product used to remove dirt, so presumably a tergent is a product used to deposit it.
















Why hasn’t Toyota already used Tergent as the name for a dirt-slinging sport utility vehicle? They certainly have lots of other silly names, like Vitz, Platz, Yaris, and even Echo.

Word origins aren’t obvious to kids. Carnage means killing of a large number of people. Does it involve a car? Then truck-nage would describe an even worse event - involving a truck.

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