My dad and I always have the most interesting and irrelevent arguments over dinner. Usually, it invoves a word, and whether or not it is real and/or being used correctly.

The other night, the word we were arguing over was ‘allay.’ It came up as we were talking about his work (he’s a plant manager for a concrete company) and how his customers were worried about the coming frost. I asked if he was was able to allay their fears, and he gave me a dirty look.

“No, I didn’t assuage their fears,” he said.
“Oh, so you didn’t allay them either?” I responded.

What followed was a verbal argument about whether ‘allay’ was really and truly a word–because of course he didn’t believe me. As soon as we were able, he removed himself from the dinner table, and stalked off to grab my dictionary and thesaurus.

As soon as I finished up the dishes, I joined him back at the table, where he was looking up the word, to no success. I cracked open the thesaurus, and found the word in thirty seconds.

Definition:
1 : to subdue or reduce in intensity or severity : ALLEVIATE <expect a breeze to allay the heat>
2 : to make quiet : CALM <trying to allay their fears>
intransitive verb, obsolete : to diminish in strength : SUBSIDE
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’m not surprised the ‘allay’ wasn’t in my dictionary. After all, it’s only a collegate dictionary, and as such it doesn’t contain all the words. That’s why my thesaurus is so handy–not only does it give the synonyms, it gives the definition for the orignal .

It was so very nice to prove to my dad he was wrong. It’s not very often that I can teach him something he didn’t know, and will believe me when I show him. Usually, I show him, and he’s still disbelieving.

It’s nice to be the one who’s right for once.

– “Thorn in my Pride,” Rotator: Dizzy Mizz Lizzy