Hellwinds of Frankenstorm

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Mon Oct 29 12:00:38 UTC 2012


This booger is worse than you think.  The Weather Channel advises New York
residents to beware of the storm's "searing winds."

BTW, OED doesn't include the cliche' book-review sense of "searing":
"emotionally painful."

BTW, the English war poet Wilfred Owen famously described himself as a
"conscientious objector with a very seared conscience."  Students and
people who should know better seem to take this to mean that once at war,
Owen was even more horrified by his experiences than he expected.

But "seared" means/meant "made callous."  Once Owen had recovered from
PTSD, and after duty in Scotland and Ireland, he asked to be returned
to his unit.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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