Little things mean a lot

Twice a year, I'm forced through hair-tearing-out frustration as I listen to and read the reminders that it's time to change the clocks. It's that time of year again: over the weekend, we were reminded to fall back into Standard Time from Daylight Saving Time. Did you get that? Daylight Saving Time. Not Savings.

There are savings accounts and savings banks and life's savings. But there is no Daylight Savings Time. That's wrong and I wish people would stop using it.

It seems such a small thing and you may wonder why I mind. I don't know. Everyone has her own small points of irritation and this is one of mine.

Another one of mine – and this follows in the wake of the Russell Williams judicial proceedings – is the use of the word "horrific." I was prepared to come to this blog and register my complaint on the basis that it is not even a word: like, what are you trying to convey? Something that's horrible or something that's terrific? I know what people mean when they say "horrific" and yet, I dislike its impreciseness.

Well, I looked in all the dictionaries – including real dictionaries that I could hold in my hands – and it seems that "horrific" is, indeed, a genuine word. I guess when I think about it, it's close to the word "horrify" and its meaning, in that sense, is understandable.

Okay, so it's a word. I grant you that. But I don't have to like it.