On occasion, I discover that a word I had always thought existed is in fact a figment of my imagination. Does anyone else have these?
To misle – until quite recently, I believed there was such a word, because of all the times I had read “he misled her”, etc. And I gave it a slightly sneakier meaning than ‘mislead’ – more along the lines of ‘hoodwink’ (which is an excellent word!).
And a couple of other similar things I’ll own up to:
Misunderestimate – a mating of misunderstand and underestimate. I’ve never actually written this one, but when I’m speaking of misunderstandings and underestimations, it’s always lurking there waiting to spring out.
Survery – my fingers won’t let me type ‘survey’ without inserting an ‘r’. Perhaps a hangover from that long-ago dissertation on slavery? Or perhaps I have a subconscious obsession with serveries.
Anyone else care to confess?
