Words

Today's word is 'palimpsest', which for some reason I always confuse with 'crepuscule'. I always think 'palimpsest' has something to do with the sun coming up or going down. And I'm always wrong.

This word confusion reminds me of the fleeting few months of my university life where I had taken enough French classes to be close to some level of fluency. When I hear a word, I often see an associated picture in my head. After a few years of French lessons, I started to have double word pictures in my head for two words in particular! The words: 'chair' and 'pain'. In French, 'chair' means 'flesh' and 'pain' means 'bread'.

It doesn't happen so much now, but in those years, if I read the word 'chair' in either language, my mind would flash images of a chair and a hunk of flesh at the same time. The same used to happen with 'pain': I'd get images of bread and pain at the same time. It was very odd. "Zut!", I would say to myself. It kept me amused.