I've walked this earth for three decades, assuming that those baggy, breezy shorts I wore in middle school were called, "Cool Lots." Just recently, I discovered that they are actually called "culottes." I feel this is something I should have picked up earlier in the game. Now I'm questioning everything. Were those high top sneakers I wore not L.A. Gear, but instead La Gear?
Naturally, to verify this new discovery of mine, I check the Wikipedia entry for “culottes.” Yup, sure enough, there are my childhood shorts.
Side note: I really can’t recommend this Wikipedia article more. It really doesn't disappoint. I had no idea that one clothing item could have such significant historical context. Most of the entry describes culottes in the context of the French Revolution. Then, in a transitional jump that even Evel Knievel wouldn't have attempted, it goes from Paris during the Victorian Era immediately into the Mall of America in the 1980s.
I do challenge the accuracy of this particular Wikipedia entry in one aspect. Wikipedia posits that another phrase for culottes is the skort. I’m no sartorial archivist, but I’m pretty sure my sixth grade closet had a one section for culottes and one section for skorts. Sure, a pair of culottes can transform into a skort with the simple addition of a front skirt panel. But then the article of clothing would would cease to be culottes, would it not? Culottes and skorts are entirely distinct subspecies of the genus Unattractivus Rumpus Coveragus. Culottes are unabashedly direct. Spacious thigh room? On it. Breezy leg openings? Don’t mind if I do. High rise? Hell yes. Culottes look at the world and say, “See these pleats? I DARE you to find a camel toe.”
Skorts, by comparison are all about deception. They provide the same movement but do it behind the scenes. A curtain across the front prevents the world from seeing the magic taking place. That is, until the skorted individual walks away. Then everyone’s like, ahhh, so THAT’s how she could sit cross-legged with so much confidence. I feel so misled...
Compromise: maybe there is some overlap. But I think we can agree that it’s like the law of rectangles and squares. All skorts are culottes, but not all culottes are skorts.
Some other errors I only recently picked up on: the phrase “for all intents and purposes.” I used to say “for all intensive purposes.” Which still kind of works, when you think about it. But then, on second thought … nope. I’m just an idiot.
My most unfortunate misunderstanding had to do with the word “scatological.” It kind of sounds like scattered, right? Using my foolproof powers of deduction, I determined that, since those two words sound alike, they must be in the same linguistic ballpark. Scattered means spread around and disordered, so clearly scatological refers to something being randomly structured in terms of logic. (Again, “logical” is right there in the word.)
I didn't use this word a lot, but I used it off and on for years. YEARS. It wasn't until I had the following conversation with my co-worker that I discovered what I had actually been saying:
All this time, I was been referring to things as being … poopy.
I immediately went to my office, shut my door, and mentally rewound the last few years, scanning for any memory of using that word. At the committee meeting with the executive dean? In front of my freshman seminar class? When I was talking to the priest at my grandmother’s visitation hours? On that date with the cute guy at the zoo? How many times did I confidently describe something as “having to do with feces” in front of these people?
In a horrifyingly ironic twist of fate, a few years later I did wind up in a work meeting that I could accurately describe as scatological. But that’s a story for another time.
Another example of definition ignorance: this afternoon I was typing an email to a co-worker about a situation where a student thought that he had the right to do whatever he wanted in a class. I typed, I mean, it’s like he thinks a letter from his coach gives him carp blanche to do anything.
Oddly, the spell check function didn’t recognize the phrase “carpe blanche” and didn't have any suggestions for a correction. Hmm, since it’s one of those fancy foreign phrases maybe there’s an extra e at the end of “carp” or something. I retyped “carpe blanche.” No dice. I decided to Google it.
Carte blanche. Not carp blanche.
Apparently the French phrase translates to “blank card” or “blank cheque.” Ah, yes. The ability to write a blank check makes way more sense than the ability to steam cook a fish.
Aaaand, just like with the culottes, all problems start with the French...
