Archive: Arts & Entertainment

SMART TALK

by Dr. Les Terse



OVEREXHAUSTED: At the Center for English as a First Language, we like to say that we get overexhausted by patients who overexaggerate. Of course, we use that line only in the sacred precincts of the Fowler Lounge, where no impressionable patients can overhear. They might not understand that we're relieving frustration by joking, and they're the butt of the joke.

We don't feel badly for them - that would be making fun of the ignorant yet again - but we do feel bad that they don't sound as smart as they think they do. Fortunately, we're here to help.

Exhausted already means overtired. Any more over, you'd be six feet under. Besides, overexhausted fails the redundancy test: Underexhausted sounds as silly as young geezer.

The same argument destroys overexaggerate. Exaggerate already means over the top in credibility, and underexaggerate makes no more sense than risky haven.

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