Miscellania and Other Words

Of course, miscellania is not a word; the real word is miscellany. It's just that I feel miscellany isn't a very good word. It's off-kilter and lopsided and it ends too abruptly. "Miscellania" on the other hand is melodious and well-rounded, what with the accent being on its middle syllable. Now I'm not afraid to make up new words when I feel it's the appropriate thing to do, but I like to check that somebody hasn't beaten me to it. So I did a G**gle search on "miscellania," and guess what? Somebody did beat me to it, sort of. It turns out that Miscellania and Etceteria are the names of two cities in some game called Runescape. How about that!

As I write this on 9/11/2008, I'm thinking back to when I visited Ground Zero four years ago. I found the site to be at once somber and eerie. But now see if you don't agree with me that a minor little certain something that happened to me this week is a little coincidental. Just two days ago, my feedback number on ebay clicked forward from 910 to (I think you may have guessed it already) 911! I was looking forward to blowing the shofar that my feedback was 911 on 9/11, but then it iterated forward to 912 yesterday. Time marches on...

If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. Probably you heard the flap in the news this week about that sentence. As soon as I heard it, I was reminded of a similarly-spirited sentence that I can remember my father saying on occasion. "That's like putting a lavalier on a pig." I have to say I'm sorry that the word lavalier isn't used much anymore because I like it as a word. You might want to peek here. You're welcome!