Ever get the feeling that some words are holding something back from you - that they're not showing their full hand (or in some cases bluffing!) - in order to conceal some dirty little secret? Yes, you know what I'm talking about: those words just one letter away from meaning something entirely different from what they at first appear. Those words who casually "forget" to declare a most damning consonant at customs or try to feign respectability at a supper club by putting on a nice, drycleaned vowel.
Well, if you don't know about this insidious underclass of the English language, you should. Did you know that an estimated 10% of the population of Webster's Unabridged are bonafide bimeanings?
What are we to do with words such as 'friend' when we find - to our shock and horror - that behind the ostensibly amicable lounging of an 'R' lurks a backstabbing fiend? Or when a strip-search of 'realty' turns up a "misplaced" 'I,' drawing gasps over inflated housing prices from the crowd?
Is there anything at all classy to be found in the deceit (aka, 'decent') that 'public' has been pulling off for centuries with its cleverly-positioned 'L?' Or in the so-called polite suppression, over after-dinner brandy, of the most disagreeable flatulence of 'far' by covering up its dangling you-know-what?
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a literary crisis on our hands and must act now to avoid further infiltration into our language. The next time you see suspicious verbiage, confront it and demand that it show identification. Tug on its trenchcoat and watch for any letters that may come tumbling out onto the floor.
Report all accounts to Merriam Webster immediately so that our great lexicon may be purged of this most sleazy riffraff. Such undesirables, with all their charm and wit and baked brie and champagne, may appear harmless but are in reality corrupting our adolescent vocabulary into reckless symbols of untruth.
