[Chicago-talk] what's wrong with chicago.pm

Andrew Rodland arodland at comcast.net
Tue Aug 8 17:13:28 PDT 2006


On Tuesday 08 August 2006 1:13 pm, Jonathan Rockway wrote:
> I'm looking for a Perl job, but I don't know C#.  I'm not adverse to
> learning it, though.  (I do know Java, though, and I hear they're
> similar-ish.)

Since you made a goof posting this anyway, I figure it gives me license to 
butt in with a vocab lesson.

Adverse means unfavorable, against one's interests, or simply harmful, as 
in "adverse weather" or the related "aversity" or "adversary".

Averse means disinclined, distasteful of, or tending to avoid, as 
in "Risk-averse behavior." Related is "avert", which means to avoid ("avert a 
catastrophe") or turn away ("avert your eyes").

If you think about it for a bit, it's not surprised that they have the same 
ultimate root verb, latin verto/vertere, which means "to turn" and gives us 
_lots_ of good words (vertex? versus? vertical? Even advertise.) But now we 
all know about what that little 'd' does, and how not to trigger 
teeth-gnashing reflexes by misusing "averse" and "adverse".

Andrew

P.S. Just in case anyone hasn't figured out, nobody's being flamed here. No 
animals were harmed in the making of this message.


More information about the Chicago-talk mailing list