Yesterday I was going to invite you to write me a fulsome reply and wait to see who knew that was the wrong word, bur that would be sneaky. A lot of people are using it incorrectly now, thinking they are saying large, thorough, abundant. Not. It's actually not very nice, kind of overdone, even tasteless. It's on the cusp. Some consider fulsome praise a compliment; others would be offended. I once wrote a manufacturer, of sponges as I recall, offering me fulsome information if I wrote them. So I wrote questioning their use of the word. They just sent me a bunch of sponges. Copy writers are never wrong. I fired a copy editor when she tried to correct me with incorrect words and I took my byline off an article for a well-known magazine because they put bad grammar into my copy. I make enough mistakes of my own without letting anyone else put words in my mouth - on my paper - online.

Oh, my, it's hard keeping up with the medium (means, method, way, form, agency, avenue, channel, vehicle, organ, instrument, mechanism)! Have you noticed how your vocabulary has grown in the last ten years? And not just the words. How about the acronyms and initials? Ten years ago I knew that DOA meant dead On Arrival but I didn't know that GSR is Gun Shot Residue or BFT is Blunt Force Trauma.

Hey, I grew up with FHB - Family Hold Back - if there wasn't enough food for an unexpected guest. BO was Body Odour in the ad for Lifebuoy soap. SWAK was Sealed With Kiss on letters to a soldier serving overseas. Much later, taking instructions for reviving a heart attack victim with CPR - CardioPulmonary Resuscitation - one was supposed to KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. ( It didn't work with my husband, though. Sorry.)