My Mom forwarded this to me in email: 

Heteronyms... Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym. You think English is easy? I think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS GREAT! Read all the way to the end... This took a lot of work to put together!

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the base of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes..
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong for me to wind the sail.
18. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend? Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France .. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible..

PS. - Why doesn't Buick'; rhyme with quick'?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP'. It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends.

And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.

People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special..

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.

In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.

It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so.......it is time to shut UP!

Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.

Use the word of the day in a tweet and include #definethis. Daily winners when 3 or more ppl play. Prize goes to monthly winners.

Try this as a writing exercise. Each word is unusual, not well known. Don't feel less than brilliant if you have to look them up. So many are words I have heard and assumed I understood what they mean from the context they were used in. But, that doesn't mean I really understand the word.

Learn something new every day.

From the Free Dictionary - Dystopia: an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be.

Dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. It's a pretty great word if you're a science fiction fan, like myself. I hadn't heard of it before. Or, at least I didn't remember it. My nephew started playing a new game on his PS3, BioShock. It's a real experience into dystopian societies.  Pretty grim in fact. I was looking up more information about the storyline and characters when I came across the word dystopia in a write up about the game. So I had to look up the word. It was self explanatory really but still, I gave into temptation to find out more.

Exploring Dystopia - a forum for science fiction and horror fans. There is an old site too, pretty abandoned and comes with pop up ads and a thick banner on top.  But the site itself is pretty cool if you overlook the ad junk. Too bad they didn't keep it up and move it to a different free host.

Suite101: Utopian/ Dystopian Fiction.

Dystopia -  A cyberpunk game.

"It's time women stomped on a few feet (or inches) and took back our words: slut, bitch, hag, whore and all the rest of them. They belong to us. Words are our power. No man really has the same power with words that women do. I think that's why men have tried to throw words at us like darts. They chip at our glory with our own greatest tool and assets. But, the words are ours, still.

Think, what are women so well known for which men have never grasped? Communication. Men will even admit this if you catch them in a particularly honest moment. I've seen them post it, right here at Adult BW even.

Also, did you know most bloggers are women and the numbers of women rise dramatically when it comes to sex bloggers. Women talk about relationships, passion, sensuality and sexuality. Men are close mouthed. Or, they will talk about the crude basics like how well they nailed her. Sadly, they may be the only one who thinks that way about their skills. Which is another whole column I will write someday. I think I should have that third lover first though. Real versus cyber but still, I've seen some sad fumbling whether on my flesh or virtual.

Anyway, back to the words. I want women to stop thinking being called a bitch is negative. First of all, think how surprised people will be if you take the worst word they can hurl at you as a compliment. If you say "thank you". If you laugh while they stand there red faced, eyes still bugging out and looking amazed that their insult missed the mark so completely.

Don't think of Bitch as a female dog, think of it as a powerful woman. A woman who knows her own mind and is not afraid to use it. A woman who knows what she wants and goes out there and gets it. Ball grabbing and everything, just like those bags of mostly testosterone.

Slut and whore are no longer words to chip at our sexuality. Now they prove our sexual virility, our sensuality and our power over men, especially when it comes to sex. If they call you a slut you know you've done a really good job making him drool. Good for you! Let the dog lie there in his own wet spot and wish he could have a slut like you.

Hag, that's a word meant to hit us right between the eyes. We think of hags as old women, grey, washed out, worn out, wrinkled, ugly and badly groomed to say the least. But, a hag is not actually any of those things. The hag is the wise old woman, the woman of the woods, the witch, the midwife, the wild Earth Mother. Hags are powerful women too. Women of nature and power. Most of the less than complimentary words for women have come from powerful beginnings. The power of these words was drained away as was the power of womankind. As we stopped being matriarchies we lost our best words. I still would not like to be called a hag or a frump or any of those others. There is malicious intent behind the words. However, the words themselves are being unfairly (ignorantly) used.

It's time for us to make the words mean something else, make them positive and powerful. Then we will have all our best tools and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Call us what you will, it's all good. We are Woman!"

Originally posted to Adult BackWash: Saturday May 08, 2004  

I don't say the F word, I just do it. Why is it so bad to say fuck but not so bad to fuck? It's like that whole cock sucker thing which I have written about here before and will probably rehash eventually.

I give up on calling it the F word here. It's easier to type fuck and it does have that lovely shock factor. Are you shocked? Don't you like being shocked. The badness of being the one to shock and the tingling titillation of the one being shocked. Giggle.

No, I didn't just giggle. That would be beneath me. I am a dragon, dragons don't really giggle. We growl and grin a lot though.

Anyway, I've always been a good girl and I have always been select in my vocabulary. Not because fuck is a bad word so much. Mainly just because it's kind of crude and just not me. Or, not how I see me as being me. After all, there are so many words to choose from. Why say fuck when sex or make love will do?

But, there is something about saying fuck to your lover at just the right key moment. No, not eff off, not that kind of key moment. I mean the more flavourful and sensual... 'let's fuck'. The suggestion of doing something naughty, slightly forbidden and downright bad.

Still, I am select in which words I would use. I wouldn't say screw. I don't like tit or cunt. Those just sound so ugly and hard.

I have yet to say fuck in his presence, face to face. It is quite different to type it than to actually speak it. He's also select in his word use. I like that about him. Also, it makes the occasional fuck word extra noticeable, erotic and bad. It's fun to be bad sometimes. I intend to be quite bad on Tuesday when we will be in Ottawa. I expect there will be some doing and saying going on. I'm planning on it.

Even for nice grrls there are times when you just grin wickedly and say fuck it all.