Misled about deniers
I was reading Paul Krugman’s recent blog about the response of Congress to climate change, and he used the word “denier”.
I read it as though it was a word rooted in French, pronouncing it in my mind in the same way as one would pronounce “denier” as in a unit of measurement for fibres. (Remember when folks bought nylon stockings of a certain “denier” - maybe they still do).
I found Krugman’s use of the word to be odd, and immediately thought that he was resurrecting one of those good old fashioned journalistic words, such as “solon”, or “gubernatorial”, or “denizen”.
Of course I looked the word up, and then started to giggle when I realized that Krugman meant “one who denys”. I’d simply been reading the word with the wrong mental pronounciation!
Never mind. Up until I was about 10 years of age people in my word were constantly being “my-zulled”.
Then I learned that they were being “miss-led” (misled).
I read it as though it was a word rooted in French, pronouncing it in my mind in the same way as one would pronounce “denier” as in a unit of measurement for fibres. (Remember when folks bought nylon stockings of a certain “denier” - maybe they still do).
I found Krugman’s use of the word to be odd, and immediately thought that he was resurrecting one of those good old fashioned journalistic words, such as “solon”, or “gubernatorial”, or “denizen”.
Of course I looked the word up, and then started to giggle when I realized that Krugman meant “one who denys”. I’d simply been reading the word with the wrong mental pronounciation!
Never mind. Up until I was about 10 years of age people in my word were constantly being “my-zulled”.
Then I learned that they were being “miss-led” (misled).
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