20-Minute Topic: Recompense

    Apparently, we're doing this again? I guess? I mean, that's two in the same week. All (both) of the portents agree, we are doing this again. Anyhoozle...you like that word? I don't like that word. I don't think I'll ever use that word again. AHEM! Anyway, I really feel like I should be getting paid for this. I mean, I've got like a third-degree black-belt in lexiconographical jujitsu, and that's GOTTA be worth something. Does Wal-Mart still accept Mad Props as...RECOMPENSE?!? How'd you like that segue? Worked the concept in TWICE in one paragraph. Though, by most standards the ebb and flow of ideas in meanings in that paragraph was likely sufficient split it into multiple paragraphs, amoeba style. Before you ask, no, my all synthesizer Devo cover band called Amoeba Style never really took off, and no you can't have a free copy of our EP.

    

   Whew. That paragraph break was WAY overdue. Still in the dark? Allow me to illuminate you so you don't accidentally step on a metaphorical Lego in the dark. And no, before you ask, my all-percussion Nine Inch Nails cover band called Lego in the Dark never took off either. And stop asking me for free stuff. I demand RECOMPENSE! W00t! Three already!

   Okay, for real this time. Today's word is recompense. If you hadn't guessed that by now, you're probably an inanimate object, or drunk. Or both. Which is the name of my...huh, no joke forthcoming. Usually by that point in the sentence I've got something, but it never came. Oh well. You can't win them all, I guess.

   While yes, I think the above examples are amusing, they aren't quite accurate in reality. The difference being, I'm in no pain or under any coercion to write these things other than the type I inflict on myself. In reality, recompense is close to reparation than simple payment by way of literal translation. Colloquially, however, people, or maybe just myself, use it fairly interchangeably when talking about a particularly difficult or painful purchase. Shopping at Wal-Mart using imaginary money has potential to be both incredibly rewarding, AND...taserific. So maybe it DOES apply in the literal sense, too.

   Lest anyone misconstrue my meaning, however, I DO want you to throw money at me. I'm thinking...$7.50/post. That seems well worth it to everyone. From my perspective you're getting a serious bargain. Where else can you go to this kind of insightful elocutionary commentary? I would have loved to read this stuff when I was your age. You're like 20, right? Somewhere in there? Man, that would have been helpful. Or at least intermittently distracting, two things which were definitionally interchangeable to me back then. You just can't put a price on a quality education. Except, I just did, didn't I? A few sentences back? $7.50. A good education is like budgeting for an apartment in a metaphorical way that isn't coalescing in my mind the way I'd hoped when I began that sentence...yeah...A quality education is worth $7.50, plus room and board. If you pay more than that, utilities not included, you're probably getting ripped off.