behoove

[unappropriate]

i just remembered the first time i ever heard the word "behoove". i don't remember the exact context, except that it was in my 6th grade art class and i was probably fucking around with something i oughtn't, and mrs. shaw told me that "it would behoove you to not do that".

i had never heard the word before, and thus had no idea what she was

Comments

[maps_or_guitars]

I'm sure Mrs. Shaw would be proud to see how hoo you've grown up to be.

[unappropriate]

heh. thanks for that. ;p

[maps_or_guitars]

Looking up the derivation for the word has got me thinking of other words, like "Bootless," and "Hwaet."

[unappropriate]

i've never heard of "hwaet".

[maps_or_guitars]

First word of Beowulf. Literally means "What" but actually is an attention-getter word, signaling speech to come. Sort of a medieval mic-check-one-two. Seamus Heaney translated it as "So" which I like. Someone else picked "Attend!"

[unappropriate]

ah. ok!

[ndanukiwi]

I had an experience sorta like that with the word "debris". The first time I heard it was after that awful plane crash (explosion?) just outside of DTW - some time when we were kids, I don't remember exactly when. I heard something on the news about debris being recovered from the highway, and for some reason (maybe the footage that went with it, or the context of what came before?) I thought "debris" meant dismembered body parts. I kept that idea for several years, I think, and the word still creeps me out a bit even though I know it doesn't actually mean anything creepy.

[unappropriate]

that's sort of fantastic, actually. and i totally see where you'd have gotten that impression too. :)