I actually used the term ‘Ad Nauseam’ in a job interview

Today I used the Latin term ‘ad nauseam’ for the first time in a real conversation. Better still, it was during a job interview. What was I thinking? Why would I risk that? What if I’d used it incorrectly? I would have scuttled the whole interview right then and there (the interviewers were clearly the book-reading types).

The other day I saw an interview with a teenager on TV who used the word ‘epitome’ except he said the ‘tome’ vowel like you would say ‘comb’. I felt a little embarrassed for him, he’s clearly read the word and not connected it to when he’s heard it spoken. But then I thought, ‘what if that’s an acceptable way of saying it too? And I’m laughing at this 16yr old who is actually so much more advanced than me that he is confident to correctly go against convention.’

For the same reason, I still don’t know if Natasha Bedingfield is a dumbass or not for pronouncing the ‘bole’ in ‘hyperbole’ the same as bowl.

In a university essay I once used ‘enforced’ instead of ‘reinforced’. The marker called me on it and I’m glad because it’s such a nice private way of making a mistake and being corrected. I really don’t mind some 40 year old cat-loving virgin sniggering at me behind a pile of essays in her empty, lonely house.

That sounded vaguely misogynistic, but I’m not entirely sure it was. I think this disdain was surfaced by a vague memory of one of my female uni tutors saying she was friends with a witch (we were studying Macbeth) and thinking she was cool and different because of it. Knob.

On a related note, I’ve also been using the term ‘fool’s paradise’ a lot lately for no particular reason (describing the same situation each time, I haven’t just been applying it willy-nilly to everything). While writing this post I suddenly panicked and thought maybe I’m also using ‘fool’s paradise’ totally incorrectly. Worst case scenario: Fool’s Paradise is an actual place. So it would be like me saying ‘My job was going so smoothly, but I was living in Rhode Island’.

I sort of was and wasn’t using it correctly. Wow, talk about touch and go moment there. What if I had been using it incorrectly! Fucking hell!

Also, why does ‘panic’ get a ‘k’ when used as a verb?

Which brings something else to mind. For as long as I can remember I’ve been getting angry at people pronouncing the word ‘clique’ as ‘click’. If it’s the TV, I scream abuse and say it’s ‘kleek’ you dumb bastard, ‘kleek’! If it happens in person, it depends on how well I know them as to how much I abuse and chastise them.

But I honestly don’t even know why I think it’s said ‘kleek’. It was so long ago that I decided this rule that I can’t remember why I decided it. It really is 50/50 as to whether I’m right on this. Yet I am so belligerent about it. What is wrong with me?