Context is everything.
Seriously. This is something we should all know from reading newspapers or watching the news. You might see a headline and read nothing of the story to which it relates. From that headline, you think you know all you need to know, except you're wrong. Most likely, you aren't even close.
Even worse, you will do it to yourself. You will write yourself a little reminder to do something or to buy something. In a hurry, you will write down a key word or phrase, knowing that will be enough to remind you when you next look at that small slip of paper.
Yeah, right. Not a chance. How many times have you picked up a piece of paper that has your writing on it, only to wonder, "when the heck did I write that?
Why the heck did I write it?" You'll be stood there for a good fifteen minutes, looking at the hastily-scrawled word, 'racket', until finally giving up and throwing it into the bin. Only later, when you get a clip around the ear from your beloved, will you suddenly remember that you were supposed to be making a complaint to the apartment block's supervisor about the racket that your upstairs neighbours were making until three in the morning. You'll also wonder how you managed to forget, when you also recall you got a hard look from your other half for commenting on their stamina...
In this case, it's nothing nearly so lurid - I think....
I wrote this Gem down, but neglected to jot down the circumstances in which it occurred. It's not normally a problem, but when the Gem in question involves Julie's favourite word, it turns into a fairly major problem. When my own dearly beloved is stuck for a word, she doesn't stop to try and think what it is she's trying to think of. Instead, she'll just substitute the word 'wotnot'. When we used to have a car, this often became a major problem, especially when Julie was trying to give me directions ("Mind the wotnot."
"The what?" "The wotnot - we need to take that oojumaflip there.")
Sometimes, Julie seems to have lost most of the words in her own personal lexicon, especially when the word 'wotnot' appears to be taking over, as you can see here...
Like I said, I didn't write down what was going on to prompt this flood of 'wotnots', so go on, feel free to comment below and suggest what the various 'wotnot's may have been - No prizes for the best, but if there are enough people commenting with possible variants, then I'll post the best of them, in a new entry, sometime in the near future.
