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Karma of Lexicon: The Gauntlet of Logical Distortion

Would someone please tell me why are they spelling unibomber as unAbomber? If this is the pattern we should be following, then we should all be writing unaform, unaty,unaversity, unaversal, and adding every single word that shares this phonetic commonality, in order to contribute vehemently to this trend of logicaldisarray. The prefix uni-, means one, yet sometimes the “i”is excised , as in unanimous. Could this explain the lexical conundrum that has allowed the hijacking of the “i” and its replacement, by a few iterating dolts, with an “a”?

 

Nonetheless, these assaults on Logic are not new. As a matter of fact, almost everyone is familiar with a few popular phonetically laden mistakes that we've been hauling along for centuries, such as nickname, apron and umpire. These terms were all misconstrued upon the pronunciation confusion that emerged from the interchangeable usage and misusage of the modifiers “A” and “An”; for, as you may already know, the terms in their respective order, were actually ekename, napron and noumpere.

 

Since two of these words were preceded by the article “an”, some would attach the “n” to the following modified word due to an overlapping communicable audio glitch; and thus, allowing the modifier “a” to take over. If the term's initial letter were a consonant, as in napron, the opposite dynamic would occur; therefore, in lieu of a napron, some people would say “an apron”. Unfortunately, true meaning and logical sense were sacrificed with these mispronunciations, because the word eke, refers to addition, to lengthen or increase; hence, the meaning of an additional name or alias a person may have would make sense. But nickname? Could it stand for seeking a name in the nick of time? Or perhaps it refers to having an empty appellation, a hollow, meaningless name; or rather a name we shall use when we're feeling incisive. What do you think?

 

In the case of napron, it's a word that derives from the French naperon, diminutive of nape, which means cloth. Moreover, the French term is the scion of the Latin mappa, which means napkin, and is also the origin of the word map. So, I began to ruminate, and in my meandering thoughts I pondered, if there's a due usage for the napiers and napkins, the close relative of nape, then why are we keeping the poor napron ostracized from its legitimate family by calling it apron? The word is shouting to be manumitted and rejoined with its own.

 

Now, umpire, another word derived from the French, was originally the aforesaid noumpere, which means peerless; but suffered the same aforementioned consequence by phonetically confusing the usage of precise modifiers.

 

Another word that has experienced the gauntlet of distorted logic is antipasto, one of my favorite edibles, in spite of its lapsus linguae, slip of the tongue, which then segued into an abysmal lapsus mentis, slip of the mind. The Italian language is, by all means colorful and beautiful, yet as the result of the populistic variation of Latin, the phonetic mishandling of ante, meaning before, became spelled with an “ i” as in anti, which actually signifies against, counter or opposition.. This occurred due to the fact that they were then, as they are alternatively now, pronounced as homophones. Nonetheless, if ante meridiem, antecedent and antedeluvian were able to endure the Gauntlet of Logical Distortion, I do not see any reason for the overdue rescuing of antipasto; for, anytime the term is mentioned, we are unwittingly saying “against the meal”; and I'm sure it's no one's intention to eat something that would go against a healthy fare.

 

Well my friends, if you were somewhat piqued or tickeled by these musings, look forward to more interesting linguistic meandering in the next edition of Karma of Lexicon: The Gauntlet of Logical Distortion. 
 
by a.b. barnett