Forensics?

[JahJahwarrior]

Agilis, I cannot agree with you more. Indeed, the current state of use of many english words is terrific. To expect most people to understand even the simplest of words and to use them correctly would be fantastic.


Both of those are words that I have been thinking about recently, about how wrongly we use them. I have had four years of latin, which helps sometimes in discerning word use. Does your user name come from a latin root?

 

[agilis]

JagJahwarrior, the way you incorporated the original meaning of 'terrific' into your reply was extremely clever.
Yes, 'agilis' is a Latin word, and though I studied that wonderful and marvelously constructed language for a few years, I use 'agilis' as a kind of affectionate reference to my Jamaican Blackbilled Parrot (Amazona agilis). She has been my faithful companion for decades, ever since I bought her from a Maroon ($8 US) who lived in the hills behind Accompong. She was a tiny chick, the survivor from a nest that came to earth when dem fell de tree. It was a very different world, then. I was at the UWI in Mona for more than a year a long time ago, and spent a great deal of time in the Cockpits: Maroon Town, Trelawny, Accompong, Quick Step, Me No Sen Yu No Come; special places, a magical time.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I enjoy being clever. Entirely for the purposes of cleverity, I used an analogy of peppermints in 3 of the 4 extemporaneous speeches I had to give. I surprised my classmates by also using it in my authorship speech of a bill I had written for Student Congress. Then of course, there are the witty answers during the questioning periods in SC,

"Mr. Representative, where will the money to fund this program come from?"
"Thank you Mr. Representative, a valid question. The money will come from your wallet."

"Mr. Representative, this bill says it does not apply to those who are not "able bodied." Can you define that term?"
"Thank you, Ms. Representative, yes, you are correct, that term was left undefined. I apologize, as you see I am not the author of this bill, but in the absence of the author I am giving a sponsorship speech. If you would like to propose an amendment, you do it with my blessing. However, the author left the definition off assuming that we would understand "able bodied" as "not required to use the handicapped stall to correctly relieve oneself.""
"Thank you Mr. Representative, but, what about the mentally handicapped?"
"Well, Ms., I figure they'd better be using that handicapped stall, oughten't they?"

(I wrote one bill and gave a sponsorship speech for a friend who left early. those questions were all posed about the bill he proposed, and yes, those are my near verbatim answers. I had the room rolling in laughter, but I think the representative who was worried about the not able bodied people was upset with me. I hadn't thought of it before, I'd hardly read the bill, so I was forced to come up with the easiest definition I could as I started answering the question. I think it was a great answer! by the way, the bill was mandating 10 weeks of mandatory boot camp for high school seniors, in order to more quickly raise an army if a draft was called. I don't support the bill but had to to give a sponsorship speech, and I think I did a good job of arguing for something that I would rather have argued against.)