Toe in the Water

Another Gripe

Another Gripe

Talking (or not) of words that annoy, one of my favourites is “cheater.” You may be thinking that it means “one who cheats,” but it doesn’t. It’s a made up word and very young indeed. You might find it in the dictionary but they’ll put any old rubbish in there these days.

The truth is that the word is “cheetah” and it means an exceptionally fast-running member of the big cat family. If you want to refer to someone who cheats, you should say, “He’s a cheat.” That’s it, simple as that. It’s a word that can function as a verb and as a noun. There was never any need to invent the superfluous “cheater,” because we already have a shorter and more accurate word for that.

Why do I mention this today? Because I was just irritated by someone using the non-word, of course.

Word count: 145