centre of the universe - the dreaming: It's decided

10/19/2004: "It's decided" Yes, it's decided.

The World According to The Captain:

If the baby is a boy, it will be called The Captain.
If it is a girl, it will be called Bonehead.

I swear to God I didn't have any say in the development of this idea.

"Political rant" "Open Letter"

5 Comments

Noah , on Wednesday, 20th October:

That makes me want to have kids!

Kinda.

Der Kaptin , on Wednesday, 20th October:

"Bonehead?" I smell the work of a teasing grandpa.

In case you're waiting for the results of this "confinement" with baited breath, as I was until just a few moments ago, here's a little corrective for you:

The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers.

It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

cenobyte , on Wednesday, 20th October:

DK, will you teach Bonehead and The Captain grammar? Because if everybody had catchy rhymes to remember, nobody would use the wrong word anymore!

Um.

Well, it's a pipe dream, really.

Der Kaptin , on Thursday, 21st October:

Nice as pipe dreams are, do you really think you should be indulging in the pipe in your...condition? I almost said your confinement, but that would be a laugh.

Michael , on Thursday, 21st October:

My every best wish. Miss you too, old friend.

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