•October 6, 2021•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

This column is about neither butchery nor medieval surgery, which, face it, are one and the same.
It’s about feelings and malapropisms.
We sure do come up with some interesting, visceral descriptions of the anguish we feel, don’t we?
I have an old friend who feels “gutted” when she loses a friend or suffers a minor indignity at work. That’s quite a range of anguish, methinks, and “gutted” probably doesn’t work for the entirety of it.
I’m thinking “irked” or “disappointed” work better for the lower end of that scale.
But then, I’m a thick-skinned journalist who probably doesn’t feel things the way others do. (Don’t bet on it.)
There should be a Scoville rating for the emotional pain one suffers, with the irksomeness of getting a cart dent in your car door at the grocery store rated something comparable to biting into a poblano, while losing a loved one would be rated more like chomping on a scotch bonnet and packing it in your cheek for a day.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.