Jane said: "The second new word I learned today is something that we on the Pacific coast are all yearning for at this moment: "petrichor," the fragrance of sun-baked earth when it is first struck by rain." I had been familiar with "petrichor" already, though back east we mostly don't get much sunbaked earth and have to rely on sunbaked boulders since they bake a lot quicker. A word that I recently enjoyed learning was "mondegreen", named for Lady Mondegreen, much regaled in Scottish ballads. But as uplifting as it is to learn a new word, I find it increasingly frustrating to hear perfectly good old words being confounded and macerated on the airwaves. I am begrudgingly accepting that "death spiral" isn't just for airplanes anymore, as "spiralling out of control" becomes a mandatory phrase in every broadcast and that "epicenters" aren't just for earthquakes anymore. (By the way, isn't the west coast about due? Maybe a "fire sharknado"?) But lately as so many situations are being "exacerbated", I keep hearing PBS commentators confounding it with "exasperated" and have begun shouting at my radio on a regular basis. As a child I revered Walter Cronkite and other well educated and well spoken commentators and personalities like Dorothy Parker and Bennett Cerf. But just the other day I heard someone on public radio say "exasturbated" for "exacerbated". Every time I start to visualize that as a portmanteau, I lose my train of thought. _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…