At a Toastmasters club meeting one role is that of the Grammarian, which may optionally include introducing a ‘Word of the Week’ to help members increase their vocabulary. At today’s meeting of the Saint Al’s Toastmasters club that word was Zeal, and the theme was National Humor Month. So, I was pondering whether it might be humorous to instead have a PAIR of related words, one PRO, and one CON – like Progress and Congress (which almost seem opposites).
A half-dozen examples are shown above. (There also are some near-misses like Proceed and Concede).
Back on December 27, 2014 I had blogged about how to Have fun making up new words! Another way to do so is to notice there are other words where either the PRO or CON word is missing – as shown above in four examples each. If you are driving around in a Convertible, then you might be inspired to call someone else’s sedan a Provertible.
UPDATE April 21, 2018
Here are four more.
I like the idea of making the Word of the Day either root (well, both roots, really) -- pro or con -- and tracking usages of any word that starts with either. :) A challenge!
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