10/12/09 When I tried to open up my blog page this morning, I couldn't get it to come up for me, but I am now home from a med appointment and my first ever Shingles Shot .(A writer friend here has been suffering for weeks with shingles so I took that as a "word to the wise.")

Another writer friend has fun with words and came up with the word feckless, wanting to fit it into her writing somehow.  As you probably know, it means "weak or ineffective."  This set me to digging out a list of words I do not use but feel I should fit into my writing vocabulary.

Here are some that can trip us up:  fluorescence means "emitting or radiation" while florescence means "flourishing." Only one letter difference in these words.

Militate is to have an "effect against" while mitigate means "to soften or arbitrate"

Irreligious means "impious" and nonreligious means "secular."

But the newest word I want to add is aigrette (never heard of it before).  It means a "plume or spray"!

Goodness, what there is out there to learn!– Willma.