To continue my navel gazing, self indulgently...
I found myself in the dictionary a couple of times in the last day. One thing I found is that I misused "conscience." According to Webster, conscience is all about morality and nothing but morality. Since morality is not something that is part of my world view, my closest notion being ethics, I either didn't know or had forgotten that. So this morning I got to thinking about when I might have used the word lately and couldn't come up with anything. I'm pretty sure I haven't experienced a guilty conscience in my adult life. In any event, I had come to think of the word as being about soul searching, a routine part of my navel gazing, not about morals. But it isn't. Mea culpa.
The other word was "should." Webster offered: "2—used in auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety, or expediency." I use "should" in the context of expediency. Since I'd be hard pressed to find obligation in anything and can't recall when I last gave a thought to propriety, "should" is all about expediency. But since I'm reminded that even the people who know that about me might react otherwise, I'm banning the word. Well, I'll try to remember to do so.
FWIW, and I recognize that's not much but I'm posting anyway. <g> |
