Word To Use Today: party.

And as the year draws towards its close...well, there are still parties to go to.

The word party is all to do with sharing. Party walls are the way your neighbours get to share their family problems; and, when I was young, a party line was a shared telephone line. This meant that when you picked up your phone you would quite often hear your neighbour saying hang on, I think next-door's listening in again.

Mostly, of course, a party is a get-together: a sharing of social...er...graces. If we're lucky. If not, well, at least there'll be drink, and probably food (though if it's a publishing party you're quite likely to be fobbed off with something tiny, exquisite and riskily unidentifiable). 

Anyway, by this time of year the office, school and family Christmas parties are already so long ago that the embarrassment and resentment should be beginning to fade.

Gosh, though, it's a good thing we have New Year coming up so we can all make a fresh start, isn't it. Perhaps Auld Acquaintance should never be forgot,* but, old parties are best buried as soon as possible.

Good luck!

Word To Use Today: party. This word comes from the Middle English word partie, which means either to share, or a side in a contest. Partie in turn comes from the Latin word partire, which means to part.

*I know, forgotten! But that's what the song says, isn't it?