Friday, January 25, 2008

Word of the Day

In an attempt to create the next great email forward I sent this preponderance out at some point last summer. I’m holding on to the hope that it is still in circulation somewhere and perhaps it will get sent back to me at some point. In the mean time I wanted to share this thought for those who did not receive this perplexing conundrum of the English language in my email. I have done some research and expounded on my previous thoughts concerning this topic, so if you did get my email then it’s worth another read.

I know this can be a sensitive topic of conversation for some, but you have to separate the people group defined by this word from the actual word itself. Okay now follow me on this…retarded.

If the prefix “re” means, “to do again”, and the suffix “ed” indicates a verb; past tense, then what does the word “tard” mean? In an attempt to answer this I visited the dictionary. Just as I suspected, “tard” is not a word. The closest I came was “tart”, which is either a “pastry shell with shallow sides, no top crust, and any of various fillings” or “a prostitute”. Profound I thought; the similarities between the two “tarts”…I digress.

Moving on, since I was unable to find any such definition of the word I have taken it solely upon myself to define the word “tard” for all mankind.

So based on the prefix and suffix of the word we know that it is a reoccurring or repetitive action word. Thus meaning that “tarding” happens more than once.

So now we know that in order for a person to become “retarded”, they would have had to have previously “tarded”. Which poses the question as to why anyone would want to “tard” again? And then I thought how do we know if we have previously “tarded”, or more alarming, what if we are already in a current state of “tard”? Can one pinpoint a moment in time when they have “tarded”, so they can identify it and make sure not to “tard” again. I say no. With all of the advances in medical science wouldn’t it stand to reason that doctors would be able to determine a single “tard” in brain activity? Meaning that if a person had “tarded” once there should be some physical evidence of such an occurrence.

Thus I have concluded that we are all born into “tard” or we are born “tarded” so we are born having one “tard” already under our belt thus, if a person “tards” again; they “retard”. Perhaps it takes an extraordinary person who can have multiple “tards”, or “tard” repeatedly. Therefore, it stands to reason that this is why we call them special people, because ordinary people can only “tard” once.

2 comments:

Jake said...

Good grief....Heath....good grief!!!

haha

Vonda said...

I think my boss just tarded...it smelt bad in his office.