Foolishly Betting Infinite Subway
I am very risk averse. Extremely risk averse. And yet for some reason I recently made a foolish Subway Bet that if I lose, I will owe someone infinite Subway. And this bet goes on for my entire life.
It all started with an innocent email discussion. I mentioned that someone came out of something "unscathed." I think I used this word several times in the email and then wondered if one would ever use the root word on it's own. But for some reason when pondering this I still used the "-ed" suffix, just without the "un-" prefix. That seemed pretty inconceivable ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."). But I never thought about other uses without the "un-". For example, using the word with an "-ing" ending without "un-". People use that all the time. ALL THE TIME! I could have used that word about 50 times during these presidential and VP debates.
I could have used it but I didn't because I would have lost infinite Subway. In my haste to declare a word unusable, to proclaim a piece of the English language as dead, I told my friend KT that I would owe her infinite Subway if I ever used "unscathed" without the "un-" prefix. It wasn't until after the bet was presented and accepted that we both realized just how foolish I was. So foolish.
And now I will have to wander through the rest of my living days exclusively using words such "lambasted," "blistering" and "scorching." And as much as I love the phrases, "give him the business" and "rip her a new one" I'm going to miss this one word. Goodbye, "unscathed" sans "un-". I feel like we were just getting to know each other. But we will meet again someday. I promise.
It all started with an innocent email discussion. I mentioned that someone came out of something "unscathed." I think I used this word several times in the email and then wondered if one would ever use the root word on it's own. But for some reason when pondering this I still used the "-ed" suffix, just without the "un-" prefix. That seemed pretty inconceivable ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."). But I never thought about other uses without the "un-". For example, using the word with an "-ing" ending without "un-". People use that all the time. ALL THE TIME! I could have used that word about 50 times during these presidential and VP debates.
I could have used it but I didn't because I would have lost infinite Subway. In my haste to declare a word unusable, to proclaim a piece of the English language as dead, I told my friend KT that I would owe her infinite Subway if I ever used "unscathed" without the "un-" prefix. It wasn't until after the bet was presented and accepted that we both realized just how foolish I was. So foolish.
And now I will have to wander through the rest of my living days exclusively using words such "lambasted," "blistering" and "scorching." And as much as I love the phrases, "give him the business" and "rip her a new one" I'm going to miss this one word. Goodbye, "unscathed" sans "un-". I feel like we were just getting to know each other. But we will meet again someday. I promise.
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