Sir: I have long thought that "especial" is simply a stilted version of the word "special," and the same for the adverbs "especially" and "specially." But lately I detect that there may be a distinct difference. Could you explain? For example, which is the better usage - "She is my especial friend" or "She is my special friend"?
- Robert C.
Answer: Both "especial" and "special" are many centuries old and I know no reason you could call one a stilted version of the other. Some authorities have found slight differences in the meanings that most of us could go a lifetime without noticing.
There's a little more difference in the adverbs: "specially" is taken to indicate, as one writer puts it, that "an action is taken for a definite purpose" while "especially" means particularly or to a marked degree.
As for your lady friend - she is yours, I assume - why don't you call her both especial and special, to be on the safe side?
Sir: A reader asked you for a word that means adding liquid to a mixture of dry substances. Do you think she meant "infuse"?
- Pat S.
Answer: I'll just bet she did, thank you very much. And if that indeed is the word Mabel C. was reaching for, she thanks you, too.
Sir: We used to say "now." Then we said "at this time." After that, we began saying "at this point in time." What will be the next step in this silly progression?
- T.B.B
Answer: I surely don't know, sir or madam. I've thought for so long that "at this point in time" is the outer limit of silliness that I can't possibly think of something even more so. You think maybe we'll just go back to saying "now" and start the whole progression again?
Sir: How can food be "good"?
- Helena O.
Answer: How not? Surely you have had good food now and then. Even my favorite dictionary cites "The soup tastes good" as an example of the use of "good" as an adjective with a linking verb. If soup can taste good, so can steak and even broccoli. Who does the cooking in your house, anyway?
Sir: I wondered for some time why Wednesday has more than one "d" in it, until I read a comment by the writer Peter De Vries: "You can't be happy with a woman who pronounces both d's in Wednesday."
- Weldan A.
Answer: Wonderful. The real reason, of course, is that the day is named for the god Woden. But who can argue with De Vries? Stick with him and be happy.
Sir: A Yankee wants to know whence I got the expression "even down" when I want to emphasize a statement, as in "He wouldn't even down pass the salt" or "He would even down go out of his way to be helpful." Being from Kentucky, I didn't even down know this sounded odd. No smart remarks, please, for I even down go out of my way to search for your column.
- L B.
Answer: Being from Tennessee, I couldn't make a smart remark, because I even down didn't know there was such an expression. But I can't even down wait for a chance to use it!
FASHION NOTE of the week, reported by Big George:
"I read in an account of the wedding of Bill Clinton's half-brother Roger that `his very-pregnant bride marched up the aisle in a flower-filled tent at the Dallas arboretum.' The bride must have looked stunning in a tent!"