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Grammar Moses: A valentine straight from the heart

Have you ever racked your brain trying to come up with the perfect Valentine's Day gift that comes straight from the heart? Come on, I know you have.

For my wife, Valentine's Day trumps all other holidays when it comes to the importance of the thought behind a gift. So I always sweat blood trying to hit the mark.

Except this week, when I literally bled.

No, I didn't do anything as noble as donating blood to her (she's not my type) and I wasn't even thinking about a valentine when it happened.

In fact, it was my lack of attention that led me to it.

While shaving - an activity that is about as taxing to me as frying an egg - I got a little overzealous and nicked my nostril. While blotting it, I came up with the perfect Valentine (see

photo.)

Why should I care, Moses?

I posted the photo on Facebook, and FB friend and Moses reader Jan Drevline remarked: "Pareidolia!"

Aha! A word I did not know.

Pareidolia is the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. You know, when you see the shape of a dog in the clouds or a face in the moon or an image of Jesus on your kitchen door, grilled cheese sandwich, frying pan, slice of toast, candy bar, sliced orange, tortilla, tree stump, rock or empanada.

I'm beginning to think pareidolia must have some sort of religious requirement (it doesn't.)

I love to learn new words. Whenever I'm reading a book on my iPad I always look up the definition for every word I don't know.

However, my capacity to retain the definitions of words that are new to me has ebbed in recent years. I find that very frustrating.

While I'm at it, if you have discovered a new favorite word recently, tell me about it.

Not that I'm bitter

At this time of year, all most people seem to talk about is the weather. Check that. In the Chicago area year-round, when people aren't talking about politics or baseball, they're probably talking about weather.

So, what is it: bitter cold or bitterly cold?

I hear the two words used interchangeably on television and radio. Terrance Valentino suggests that while we're enduring the polar vortex we just say it's "dang" cold and leave it at that.

The answer is, as with many things, complicated.

"Cold" can be either a noun or an adjective. If you're using it as a noun - the cold of January - then you'd modify it with the adjective "bitter."

If you're using "cold" as an adjective - the cold weather - then you would modify that adjective with the adverb "bitterly."

(As in "You wouldn't believe the bitterly cold response I received to my valentine composed of a bloody Kleenex.")

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.

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