(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Author: Letting kids drink early reduces binging (thanks, xterminal) -- As I said to xterminal in his LJ, it's bingeing, not binging! Bothersome.

Witches Hold Conference In Ghana (thanks, o_lucky_man) -- What happened to the good witches? Ack. I shouldn't boil things down to such dichotomies.

Comments

[the-leewit.livejournal.com]

Binging/ bingeing: I find this whimperingly hard to remember, and I occasionally use "bing" as a verb.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

It's a simple rule. If the word might lead to ambiguity in pronunciation, the word should retain the "e" at the end.

There are, in my experience, only three verbs that this affects: binge, singe, and tinge.

There are few instances of "tinging" or "binging" being confused, but there is a world of difference between "singing" and "singeing".

[the-leewit.livejournal.com]

Um... my point was, I should be able to remember this, as I sometimes use "bing" as a verb. Oh, well.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry! I misunderstood.

And when do you use bing as a verb?

[the-leewit.livejournal.com]

Usually when I want to bing something off the side of someone insufferable's head... you know, something that does a glancing blow that's more noise than pain, but gets the target's attention... a coin or something...

There needs to be an expression for the sort of rage/ irritation that inspires onomatopoeia, I think... but that might just be an indication of how I think than any gap in the language...

Telling the ocean to make waves

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer. It reminds me of the king who commanded the sea to make waves. If witches conjure up all sorts of things that are going to happen anyway, it doesn't put them in such an honest light.

As for the good witches, they don't publish their prayers.