The Sparkle
I walked into my husband's home office during the news the other night and respectfully waited for a commercial break. He must have thought I had something important to say because he turned his eyes to mine with a sparkle of interest. Now I have been developing a theory that some of us must have layers of skin over our eyes, kind of like multiple opaque eyelids. At least it seems my husband does. “Jerry, do you know that disburse and disperse are two different words with two different meanings? And let me tell you how I tell the two apart.” I paused at this point because I was sure I detected a dimming of the sparkle. “Well,” I continued, “the ‘sp’ in disperse is like the ‘sp’ in spitting. It means you’re spreading something around.” The change that came over his eyes startled me at that point, but I pressed on. “…but in the words disburse the ‘b’ reminds me of the ‘b’ in bank. To disburse something means to spend or pay with money.” Maybe it’s not in the eyes at