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Tuesday 1 October 2019

Thing Not To Do Today: corrode.

To be corroded is to be gradually eaten away.

You are probably safe personally (though who can say for sure in these days of Artificial Intelligence?) from the most obvious signs of corrosion, as seen in old cars:

File:Rusted car, Strezlecki Track.jpg
photo by PookieFugglestein

 reinforced concrete structures:

File:Betonkorrosion unter Autobahnbruecke (02).JPG
photo of Autobahn bridge by Karl-Heinz Wellmann

 and leaky batteries:

File:Battery Terminal Corrision.jpg
photo by MarkBuckawicki

but there are more insidious types of corrosion.

Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyes monster which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on.

says wise Iago, a man so corroded, and perhaps with jealousy, that his mind no longer even understands itself; and then there is the corrosion of greed, fear, hatred...

As with the more visible sorts of corrosion, they can almost all be cured; but, always, the sooner the owner takes action the better.

Thing Not To Do Today: corrode. This word comes from the Latin word corrōdere, to gnaw to pieces, from rōdere, to gnaw.


(This means it's basically the same word as rodent: and you wouldn't want rats in your brain, would you?)



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