Thursday, July 20, 2006

Days of Malaise

Been having a lot of joint pains lately. (Kind of odd given my "young-ish" age. LOL!) I used an online symptom chart to see if maybe I could pinpoint a particular virus and came up with this word: malaise. Very non-descript in some ways....yet, it describes my symptoms to a tee.

Main Entry: mal·aise Pronunciation: m&-'lAz, ma-, -'lez Function: noun Etymology: French malaise, from Old French, from mal- + aise comfort 1 : an indefinite feeling of debility or lack of health often indicative of or accompanying the onset of an illness 2 : a vague sense of mental or moral ill-being <a malaise of cynicism and despair -- Malcolm Boyd>

I often wonder where we get some of the words in our language. Reading a dictionary is a fun and quick way to discover this. And now with a handy-dandy online version of the trusted Merriam-Webster's version Click here, I can find out even quicker.

What's even better is that it distracts me from my malaise...if only for the moment.

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