American English

American English is no more fixed than English. You can only nail down a language when it's dead. I was looking something up, where did it start? I was looking up exacerbate, a word I love and use too often in mixed company. I had stripped off the prefix 'from' and was working on the 'acerbate' part of things, several dictionaries deep. My nights pass like this: reading glasses, bathrobe, roll a smoke, get a drink. Normal behavior. Mindless, because of the focus, I start a fire in the cookstove. Carried home and broke apart several oak chairs from the furniture store next door, made starting a fire easy. With kindling like this the world would end in fire. Language is like that. Doppler Effect, red shift, striking a steel drift with an Estwing hammer. I wish I lived close enough to Linda and Glenn to eat with them once a week, though I'm hardly a dinner-mate of choice. I tend to deconstruct my dinner, force of habit, from eating alone; and my conversation can be fractured. They would understand that I was channeling Emily, probably not call the Emergency Squad and just put me to bed, with a pat on the head. Everyone knows the drill. What we don't speak of. Hard facts that need no explication. On a roll, I might quote someone, Catulus or Xenephon, and it would be totally misconstrued. Trying to be clear is extremely difficult. Late at night, even looking at a specific word is dangerous. Not unlike spooning with a stranger. A little piece of heaven in three four time. I agree I'm an idiot, I can't see to walk. In most ways nothing makes any sense. Perhaps the message. I can spend an hour on anything, because I have time to spare. Still, it seems questionable that you'd be up at 3:30 in the morning trying to track down 'acerbate'. Linda knows the wild dove signs, sings, language nails me to the wall, did you notice there wasn't a pause? Commas will be the death of me. You, and yours. Not unlike that time