Questions About Words

I have some questions about words.

1. Why is the word “ubiquitous” so obscure, and the word “obscure” so ubiquitous?

2. Why is every murder reported as a “brutal murder”? What would a non-brutal murder be?

3. Isn’t the term “war crimes” redundant?

4. Why does “assumedly” imply a deceitful nature but “assumably” imply an obvious truth?

5. Who will win out in the end, the people who combine “incidents” and “instances” to create “incidences” or the people who are irritated by it?

6. If we can “bike” somewhere on a bike, why can’t we “car” in a car? Or “plane” in a plane? — especially since after we fly we can “de-plane”.

7. If the cops come after you, why would you “book it” if you are trying to avoid being “booked”?

8. Why is “man” used just as a noun when “woman” is used as an adjective? That is, why can there be a “woman dentist” but not a “man dentist”?

9. Does the difference between “colored people” and “people of color” confuse speakers of French and most other languages where the distinction makes no sense? In fact, try this: Go to Google Translate, write “colored people” in for English and translate it to French. Then take the French translation and translate it back to English. You get “people of color.” Are “people of color” French?

10. Shouldn’t “White” Americans be called “European Americans”? This would promote the understanding that they are not ethnicity-free.