p-list backstory

[Michael Bailey]

Paul Mackin wrote:
>
> On Dec 27, 2005, at 4:24 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> > i used to think "peruse" meant to skim, was tickled to find not so
> > very long ago that it meant the opposite
>
>
> That can happen. Seems like there are words in our language that have
> been used or pronounced "incorrectly" so often and so universally
> that the incorrect rendering has become the correct one. Which is fine.
>

That might not be the case for "peruse" though.  It's not a word I've
heard spoken all that much, and I'm a very lazy reader, seldom pausing
to look words up (this is grist for a 2006 resolution)
I wandered into a Toastmasters meeting at work a few years ago. 
Toastmasters is a club dedicated to developing public speakers.  One
of the people there had to give a brief speech about the word "peruse"
and I was startled to find out there that I'd been misusing it for
years.
A pretty good speller, I've often been called on (less so now that
Spell Check is everywhere) for help in lexical matters, and have had
similar surprises when I found I'd been telling people wrong about
"sheriff" (I thought it had 2 r's), entrepreneur (I thought it was
"entrepeneur"), remuneration ("renumeration") and a few others.


Rich wrote:
>According to the book I read on SK, her sister Anna ultimately
married one of the >leaders of the Paris Commune if I'm not mistaken.

connections to Dostoevsky, Hilbert, and the Paris Commune.  Quelle
histoire!  Would you recommend a particular biography?

---
fast away the Old Year passes