What a mistake

Have you ever thought that something was so bad that you needed a word with more gravitas than simply 'bad' to use as an adjective? Such as an unredeemable mistake or a terrible blog post, well I give you

Egregious

This is something that is extraordinarily bad, flagrant or just plain heinous. So for instance if someone where to do something reprehensible, then before ameliorating the situation through admonition, you could be tempted to exclaim 'That is a egregious mistake'. Or in the incredibly rude case of someone lying to you a response could be 'You are an egregious deceiver, only looking to obfuscate matters'.

What I quite enjoy about this word is the fact that with just a little thought it can be used extensively, unlike last time's word. All you need to do is replace every 'very bad' with egregious. Or alternatively an example would be to say that this is an egregious goalkeeping error, maybe not as snappy as howler but a little more flair in language I think should be appreciated.

So I wish you all on your way with the hope that your mistakes are not egregious.

Ed

Is that a rhetorical question?

Normally I use this blog to talk about words that can be used to invigorate your language to the point of making conversations and writing fun by using a bit of flare.
However, today I am going to take a different tack. This is somewhat inspired by the book I'm reading at the moment (eats shoots and leaves by Lynne Trust).
Interrobang
This is a rather fun word to say yet I can not think of a time to use it. An interrobang is the punctuation mark which is half way between a question mark and an exclamation mark, to be used when you want to evoke a mixture of query and intersection. Such as at the end of a rhetorical question, hence the title.
So your question is most likely, 'what does it look like?'. Unfortunately my current type set stops me from displaying it here, but imagine a question mark and exclamation mark written ontop of each other such that they share the point and you have a interrobang. For a good picture try this
So a little divergence here from words to punctuation but then it was once said by Edgar Allen Poe 'The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood. For the want of a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid'.
With that thought I will leave you, until next time.

Ed