No, this is not a blog about a Savage Garden song. It’s the last blog (damn it, now I’m thinking about the last post) from sunny Hythe , if all goes well with the travel documents for the puppy – she’s the one in the photo.
This week, the word ‘sore’ popped into my head. Nothing particularly interesting about that, apart from the fact that it doesn’t seem to be used as much nowadays. Anyway, as it is, it means ‘painful’ but, and here’s where it gets interesting, when you turn it into an adverb the meaning changes somewhat. You speak of something being ‘sorely needed’ as in really or desperately needed. Sorely missed, sorely tempted – all just very much or extremely. To be fair, I did find examples of painfully tempted but not one ‘painfully needed’.
Now, that could just be a one-off but I found others! Poor, meaning impoverished, without money or means but also poor as in a low score. Your homework was poor. And as an adverb – the essay was poorly written. But then – and here it comes – as an adjective, poorly also means under the weather, slightly ill. Hmm!
Then there’s dear, meaning beloved but also expensive. So does ‘Dearly beloved’ at the beginning of a wedding ceremony mean ‘Beloved beloved’, or ‘Expensive beloved’?😊