Pulling in to the end of another week and it hasn’t exactly been a particularly noteworthy one, it has to be said. Work continues to take up way too much of the time I would rather be spending elsewhere, but at least this week I had a few projects that kept me reasonably busy.
The warm glow from Collingwood’s win last Friday night has only just started to wear off and is now being replaced by the apprehension over Saturday’s match against the West Coast Eagles. Will the boys be able to get themselves up again after their mighty effort last week?
As I was writing that last paragraph I was reminded of a word that has inexplicably crept into the English language – at least in my part of the world. At first I thought it was just my kids then I thought it was just the kids who went to my kids’ school. Now I realise it has grown to parents as well.
My wife and I do our best to correct out 3 young children whenever we hear them misuse words. The prime examples of this is when they say “should of”, “could of” and “would of” instead of “should have”, “could have” and “would have”.
But the word I’m talking about here is “verse”. I thought it was only children who would say something like “who are we versing next week, Dad?” To which I would invariably correct them with: “Do you want to know who you are playing?” Recently though, we received an email from the manager of my 8 year olds soccer team who informed us that the team would be versing the Seagulls this weekend.
Versing?!?
Where was I when the word versus was bastardized into a verb? Is this how languages develop? Someone hears a word that sounds similar to a completely different word and decides to misuse it, whereupon someone else picks it up thinks, yep, that sounds right and misuses it too until one day it becomes part of the acceptable lexicon.
It remains to be seen though. I will totally eat my words if the Under 9s get out this week and recite Keats to the Seagulls.
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