Word To Use Today: business.

 I've never been very good at spelling. I've had a lot of practice so nowadays most words come out right, but it's still a work in progress.

But from the very beginning there was always a delight in eccentricities like the word cupboard to assist the memory and give me an insight into the past. 

Now I think about it, my interest in language probably started with Old Mother Hubbard:

Old Mother Hubbard

Went to her cupboard

To get her poor dog a bone.

But when she got there

Her cupboard was bare

And so her poor dog had none.

The word business was another helpful word. As long as you could spell busy (which I admit is far from straightforward) then business conjured up a picture of a thousand bowler-hatted men striding busily along the terrifying (to a small child) sooty platforms at Euston Station through all the equally busy pigeons. 

They were in a state of busy-ness on their way to their business.

Anyway, business is luckily very simple. There is really only one rule: people try to avoid doing business with people they don't trust.

So that's a large percentage of the world's problems explained, then.

Good.

Word To Use Today: business. This word was bisignis in Old English and means taking trouble or paying attention. Bisig means busy. The word may have something to do with the Latin word festīnāre, to hurry.