Chrysti The Wordsmith: Confusable Words

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Is it modesty or is it prudery. Is it livid or vivid. The English language is a maze of confusing pairs of words resembling each other in pronunciation or meaning or both. Have you ever scrambled such word pairs as fluid and liquid. Successful and successive or still lag might and stalactite. What's the difference between modesty and prudery. Modesty a term of Latin derivation suggests shyness sobriety freedom from vanity and pretension generally it's a positive term prudery on the other hand has become a pejorative or negative word implying self-conscious propriety a prude is a slave to respectability. One who masquerades modesty Interestingly this word derives from a French term that means wise or serious woman. Livid and vivid are nearly twins in sound but unrelated in meaning though we often use the phrase livid with rage which seems to suggest a red

face. Livid comes from a Latin verb meaning to be blue and refers to the color of a bruise. Vivid on the other hand derives from a Latin verb meaning to live related to Vive Aisha's and the exuberant cry Viva vivid means lively brilliant or vigorous. It also can imply the production of sharp mental images as in vivid description. From Montana State University in Bozeman. I'm Christie the wordsmith. CHRISTIE The wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Pseud web dot com.