Harper's Valley

Dictionary.com sends me a word each day. I don’t recall requesting this but the emails started showing up. I took it as a cosmic hint that my vocabulary needed improvement. Certainly it is no small task trying to keep up with Harper’s Other Dad for whom vocabulary expansion is an ongoing quest.

I take pride in the fact that, fairly often, the words popping up in my email as ones with which I am already familiar. In those cases, aside from the little mental pat on the back for being smart, the reminder might prompt me to begin using the word. I think I am like most people in that I understand many more words than I typically use in my daily communications.

On March 31st the Word of the Day was paramnesia. I could tell from the structure it must have something to do with memory loss but I did know what it meant. Scrolling down, I was heartbroken to see one of the definitions is “the inability to recall the correct meaning of a word”. OMG! Not only is this an actual diagnosis but it’s condition from which I obviously suffer. I mean, I needed to look up a word in the dictionary. That must indicate I have an ‘inability to recall its correct meaning’; right?

On a related note, why is having the inability to do something described as being “unable” rather than ‘inable’? And why are both ‘inability’ and ‘disability’ defined as “the lack of ability”?

What is The Maine?
When/Where/What is The Alamo?
What happened, what happened on the 5th of November?

I’m in a panic.