Bronte Follower: Blog

I've recently been finding the adjective "incredulous" used in places where it was obvious that "incredible" was what was meant. While we currently think of "incredible" as a synonym of "wonderful" or "spectacular," the original meaning was "not credible," that is, "not believable," "in-" being a negating prefix, such as found in inoperable, ineffective, and inordinate.

"Incredulous" is an adjective that describes a person or a person's manner and means that the person is unable to believe something said or done.

Ex.: Tracy was incredulous that Frank whipped it out right there in the grocery store.

Physical things cannot be incredulous. Appearances cannot be incredulous. Actions cannot be incredulous.

uploaded last night.

Somehow, I lost an entire paragraph... plus a bit more between finishing the writing and my final edit after which I posted it. The missing paragraph is not all that critical, but I've rewritten it (and the other bit), fixed some other mistakes and some small flow problems, and put the edited chapter in the queue. I've no idea when it will hit, so....

Enrique wondered into the lingerie store and wandered if his girlfriend's mother would object to him buying her daughter a sexy item or two.

Anyone noting a problem in the above -- unless you're Enrique's girlfriend's mother -- may have noted the confusing of two very similarly spelled words that mean very different things. If you ponder what will happen, you are wondering. If you move semi-aimlessly, you are wandering.

Whether authors here and elsewhere use the wrong word due to simple typing mistakes (and as long as one spells it correctly, spellcheck won't catch it) or because they don't know that there are two different words, I find this mistake frequently.

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for your attention and have a great day!

While I had written bits of this chapter on various dates over the past month or more, I returned home from working in the field manic to get it done and posted. Being gone so long from the office means that I've got a lot on which to catch up there, so may have little time for writing for the rest of the week. Besides, readers of Beth have already waited too long for a substantial chapter. And this one is quite substantial.

I wrote another blog piece a day or two ago that I never saw come up on the front page of SOL. Hmm.