Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Deep-Seated!

While I was forming this post in my head, it was a true tale of how angst-ridden and emotional I have been lately. I was going to talk about how all these emotions were giving me mental constipation, along with horrible headaches. So, I typed in my title.
But then I questioned myself. Is it "deep-seated" or "deep-seeded"? So I thought about both trying to figure out which made more sense. Sometimes you sit in a chair that is deep-seated and you have a hard time getting out; but sometimes you plant a flower seed too deep and the plant doesn't grow. So I decided that "deep-seeded" made more sense to me.
Then I looked it up. At Swot's Corner I found my answer:

Which is correct "deep-seeded" or "deep-seated"?
(Definitions)Both Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the OED2 (Complete) agree that the correct term is "deep-seated", having its seat far beneath the surface."Deep-seeded" does not have an entry in either dictionary.

Hmm. Apparently my word origin evaluation skills need work.

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