I don’t get people, which is to say I don’t understand them, not to say I don’t receive them.  Now don’t those two meanings for “get” make a bit of a difference in what I said? 

I’m sometimes teased, pestered, persecuted, and needled in general for my fixation on precise semantics.  Apparently, there are people out there who don’t wonder why “practically” can mean “in close proximity to a location or condition” while “impractically” cannot mean “in excess or great separation from a location or condition.”  (You may officially look for the notion of “impracticality” as a spacial relation or conditional term in my future work, as I like the concept.)  I just don’t understand this comfort with almost-understanding of words.  ”Never” and “rarely”—what’s the difference?  In this nightmarish world—at least to my mind—to be near is to be neighborly, a compliment is a crown, and I suppose cuteness is to execute a witticism. (And did you know that there is only one usage for the word “cute” that men are licenced to employ, that, of course, being in reference to a girl or, if he’s very comfortable in his masculinity, occasionally for infant humans—but not puppies.)

Well, the world (people not the planet) may mock (disparage rather than impersonate) me as it will (desires rather than a prognostication)—I will know what I say.  And I’ll know what others say, so may those with blunt-edged tongues guard themselves, for they’ll inevitably hear me ask, “Now, when you say that, do you mean…?”