Congratulations!!

Well, it's official!

Brian and Dana, sitting in a tree...headed to matrimony.

In keeping with the theme, use these synonyms for "engaged" when you congratulate the happy couple.

Affiance
Betroth
Espouse

All have the same meaning: "intent to marry".

NPR is expanding my vocabulary!

I was listening to Fresh Air on National Public Radio last week, and heard a story on Jane Austen. During the course of the discourse (haha), several words were used that I had to jot down, with the sole purpose of bringing them to you:

Idiom: the language peculiar to a people or to a district, community, or class

Querulous: habitually complaining

Juvenilia: compositions produced in the artist's or author's youth

Anachronism: an error in chronology; especially : a chronological misplacing

of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other

Pedantry: narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned

Strew: to spread by scattering

Obtuse: lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect

The piece, in particular, deals with the allegations that Jane Austen was a "sloppy writer", not able to spell or use punctuation correctly. I loved this sentence, as the narrator (linguist Geoff Nunberg) summed up his notion of anyone clucking their tongues as they apply what is a modern-day-notion of correctness:

"It's nice to know where a semi-colon's supposed to go, but it's nothing to swell your chest over. The artistry is in being able to write sentences that require one."

Well said!

Kerfuffle

Recentley NPR announced that it was firing news analyst Juan Williams because of his remarks about airplane passengers dressed in traditional Muslim clothing.

Kerfuffle was often used to describe this affair. For example:

"Liberals and conservatives alike were quick to elevate this kerfuffle into a larger battle of good-versus-evil over issues such as public financing of NPR or First Amendment guarantees, but it doesn't need to go there." – Armstrong Williams, The Hill's Pundits Blog, October 22, 2010

A fancy word for "disturbance" or "fuss," kerfuffle is often used to describe an exchange or encounter of exaggerated importance.

It's a popular word in British English, currently gaining popularity in the U.S.

Kerfuffle comes from Scottish Gaelic words meaning "awkward" and "disheveled."