I was writing about flu-flu arrows the other day when I hit a snag.
This was the paragraph I'd written:
This sort of arrow will have a blunt tip. It will kill small animals and birds, but is unlikely to plunge itself into the ground or a tree, making it difficult to retrieve.
But the thing is, in that last sentence should I really have written difficult to retrieve or should I have written easy to retrieve, instead?
Oh good grief...why is this writing thing so flipping DIFFICULT???
Ah well. As Charlie Brown (I think it was Charlie Brown) said, there's no problem so big you can't run away from it.
So I crossed that bit out.
Word To Use Today: easy. This word comes from the Old French ainsie, and is related to the Latin adjacens, to lie close by.
I do apologise for posting comments that are often nothing to do with the gist of your post but, as an archer, I can attest to the problem of retrieving arrows that embed themselves into soft ground. In fact, if the arrow enters at a shallow enough angle, they can be virtually impossible to retrieve as you simply won't find them. Unfortunately, flu-flu arrows would not be much use to me as I don't hunt (bow-hunting is illegal in Ireland).
ReplyDeleteAnd (to pull this comment somewhat back to target), I personally would have used 'difficult' in that sentence.
No need for the slightest apology, Eddie, it's fascinating to get reactions to posts, and sometimes the more tangential the better.
DeleteIt seems that bow hunting is illegal in the UK, too, so I suppose that here they're used mostly for flu-flu golf: http://thewordden.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/sunday-rest-flu-flu-word-not-to-use.html
Though I still find it hard to accept that ANYONE could really bring themselves to admit to playing flu-flu golf,..
Huh. Flu-flu gold is a new one to me.
DeleteRegarding bow-hunting, who'd really want to hunt with a bow? It would be very rare to get a kill shot, and thus most hunters wound the animal and then track it as it bleeds to death. If it's a necessity, all well and good, but killing animals slowly (even for food) wouldn't be my idea of sport.
My understanding is that it's not that easy with a gun, either, Eddie, but I do agree. Anyway, I'm so soft-hearted I can hardly bear to pull carrots!
DeleteI would not have known what to put: easy or difficult. Arrows are a closed book to me. As are pulled carrots...I just buy them in the shop!! Love the thought of you weeping as you pull the little things out of the ground.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Adele Geras can't solve the problem then it must be unsolvable.
DeleteOoh, it is nice not to have made a complete idiot of myself over this one.