You'll often find me with my eyes closed, head tilted up as if listening to the heavens, just waiting for the right word to drop out of the air so that I can push it into the right spot in the sentence I'm writing.
Embarrassed, abashed, flustered, ashamed, disconcerted - they all mean approximately the same thing, but look at these sentences:
Jon was embarrassed about his feelings for Tom - this brings to mind a bit of toe shuffling, pink-cheeked kind of behaviour from Jon. Approximately the same with flustered, or abashed.
Jon was ashamed of his feelings for Tom - now we have a bit of inner conflict and, unlike embarrassed, the word really makes it seem like a negative thing, no?
Jon was disconcerted by his feelings for Tom - this one has Jon running through a checklist of probably causes in his head and coming up empty. Or doing a slow mental double-take.
Words. I love words.
This post brought to you by "I can't find the right end to this sentence so I'm taking a break."
