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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (35139)	5/24/2000 11:10:00 AM
From: Lymond	Respond to of 42523

We're discussing semantics here. The word often tends to take on a pejorative connotation -- ergo your addendum: often, in a somewhat depreciative sense, of unsound or hazardous transactions . Speculate -- derived from the Latin speculatus -- to spy out, watch, examine; and then through French specere -- to look, look at. According to both Websters and the OED: First broad definition: "to meditate on or ponder a subject; examine, inspect, etc.." Also, according to the OED, "to engage in thought or reflection, especially of a conjectural or theoretical or spiritual nature." Second broad definition: "to assume a business risk in hope of gain; especially to buy or sell in expectation of profiting from market fluctuations." Note it says "especially", not "exclusively". It was this former broad definition I had in mind. Also, "to invest money in an enterprise that entails considerable risk" -- here, the pejorative, narrower connotation of the word. Third broad definition: "to take to be true on the basis of insufficient evidence". Negative connotation here again. So it really all depends on one's usage; you clearly are referring the narrower definition, whereas I was thinking in terms of the broader one. Or perhaps we should just forget all this and just speculate upon our navels <g>.