the power of words

before i get into my post, i would like to say that i did feel the earthquake last night. it shook my bed and i could hear the whole house groan.


so on to my post. yesterday at work a co-worker comes up to me asks if i knew the difference between mosey, sashay and saunter. now they all sound like they would mean the same thing, but if they really meant the same thing then there wouldn't be three different words.

MOSEY: to move in a leisurely or aimless manner.
SASHAY: to strut or move about in a ostentatious or conspicuous manner. to proceed or move in a diagonal or sidways manner. walk, glide.
SAUNTER: to walk about in an idle or leisurely manner, stroll.

so there are your definitions and each word brings a different visual of how you would do all of those. my co-worker said that he thought to do a sashay you would need to put your hands in your pockets. i will say that a synonym for mosey is saunter. so that is why both of those are closely related. though they are still different words and have different visuals. to me this all just shows the power of words. three different words that are closely related but all mean different things. each word is good at different times when trying to describe something and aren't interchangable. using the right word when writing can make a big difference when you are trying to get your point across.