{"id":269,"date":"2010-05-19T16:44:40","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T00:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisabravermoss.wordpress.com\/?p=269"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:30:38","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T20:30:38","slug":"wince-worthy-wordage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/wince-worthy-wordage\/","title":{"rendered":"Wince-Worthy Wordage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Each year, 4.2 million people in this country are diagnosed with word allergies.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s eight hundred people.\u00a0 In either case, at an estimated annual cost of $1.6 billion in lost productivity, or maybe $67.50, this little-understood condition calls for increased awareness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Known as WA, word allergies mostly afflict writers and musical people.\u00a0 But they\u2019re not at all uncommon in those with obsessive-compulsive disorder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">To determine whether you might be suffering from WA, look for these signs:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>You are in a convenience store considering which chewing gum to purchase.\u00a0 You notice the word \u201csugarless\u201d on one of the packages, and ask yourself, <em>why are they saying it has less sugar, when they mean it has none at all?\u00a0 Or do they?\u00a0 Does it, or does it not, have some sugar in it?<\/em> You find yourself unable to make a decision about any chewing gum.\u00a0 You leave the store empty-handed and cancel your next dental procedure, which has been touted as \u201cpainless.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>You\u2019ve dressed for a special event, shooting for elegant.\u00a0 When you arrive, a well-meaning acquaintance exclaims, \u201cYou look cute!\u201d\u00a0 You muster a smile and a thank-you, but have now been triggered into full-blown Petite Woman Insignificance Complex.\u00a0 <em>Grrr, cute is for baby ducks<\/em>, you scowl to yourself, grabbing a rich hors d\u2019oevre and wishing you\u2019d worn higher heels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>Your college kid is complaining of \u201csenioritis.\u201d\u00a0 You are sorely tempted to demand an explanation of his freshmanitis, sophomoritis and junioritis.\u00a0 Instead, you tell him that \u201csenioritis\u201d means \u201cinflammation of the senior\u201d and that he might consider a course of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.\u00a0 He tells you he\u2019s done with <em>courses<\/em> of all kinds, thank you very much.\u00a0 You now know that your child (a) may have inherited your propensity to WA, and (b) has not applied to graduate school.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>You want to punctuate correctly, but find yourself unable to accept the current convention of indiscriminate hyphen removal.\u00a0 You cannot wrap your mind around words like \u201cautoimmune\u201d which look, let\u2019s face it, <em>wrong<\/em>.\u00a0 Just in the last few months, you\u2019ve received a request from your bank: \u201cPlease resign,\u201d and a baffling note from a cousin: \u201cI just resent your invitation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>At the checkout counter, you\u2019re asked, \u201cDebit or credit?\u201d\u00a0 <em>Debit means you owe something, and credit means you get something.\u00a0 Duhhh, why would anyone choose debit? <\/em>\u201cCredit,\u201d you manage, with a minimum of condescension.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>You are reading a newspaper article about relationship fidelity that employs the colloquialism \u201ccheating.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Cheating\u2014yuck<\/em>, you say to yourself, about the word, not the phenomenon.\u00a0 <em>Is this what we\u2019ve come to?\u00a0 We think of love as a quantity, a system that can be gamed? <\/em>If you find yourself less interested in the heartbreaking topic than in the usage question, you may very well have WA.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Researchers believe WA arises out of a combination of genetic predisposition, environmental toxins and common crankiness.\u00a0 There is no cure, and treatments are few; patients must simply learn to manage their symptoms, one day at a time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Ask your doctor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Published in <em>The Piedmont Post<\/em>, May 19, 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each year, 4.2 million people in this country are diagnosed with word allergies.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s eight hundred people.\u00a0 In either case, at an estimated annual cost of $1.6 billion in lost productivity, or maybe $67.50, this little-understood condition calls for increased awareness. Known as WA, word allergies mostly afflict writers and musical people.\u00a0 But&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wince-Worthy Wordage - Lisa Braver Moss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/wince-worthy-wordage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wince-Worthy Wordage - Lisa Braver Moss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Each year, 4.2 million people in this country are diagnosed with word allergies.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s eight hundred people.\u00a0 In either case, at an estimated annual cost of $1.6 billion in lost productivity, or maybe $67.50, this little-understood condition calls for increased awareness. 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