If something is ordinary, it's considered boring or unexceptional.
If something is extra, it's above what's expected, which is good. It's a bonus.
So if something is extraordinary, shouldn't that mean it's considered beyond boring? English is whack, yo.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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3 comments:
I love your post because they often make me go, "Hmm! I do wonder!"
This one made me think of a line from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. Two sorta dumb girls are talking -
Girl 1: I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed. But can you ever just be "whelmed?"
Girl 2: I think you can in France.
In 8th grade English, we had a spelling bee. We had to stand, the teacher would give us a word, we'd spell it, and move on. Well I got the word extraordinary. Luckily she pronounced it extra-ordinary and I got it right. If she would have pronounced it ex-traordianry I probably would have been two or three letters short. Needless to say, I missed the next word. Thank god for spellcheck.
In probably my favorite Simpsons episode of all time (Trilogy of Error) there's a quote from Dr. Nick that relates to this subject: "Inflammable means flammable? What a country!"
That killed me the first time I saw it.
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