Thursday, November 18, 2010

Words That Aren't the Same, November 18

Regiment and regimen.

I have been coming across the word "regiment" a lot, and not necessarily in novels about young ladies trying to find husbands during the Napoleonic Wars. I usually come across it in writing or talk about health and beauty, as in "Make sure you add this moisture-stripping toner/repulsive green drink/powerful blend of açai and pomegranate to your own beauty/health regiment."

Unless your daily grooming and diet habits include a "unit of ground forces, consisting of two or more battalions or battle groups, a headquarters unit and certain supporting units," I sincerely doubt that you have a beauty or health regiment. I could be wrong--I really don't know to what lengths some of you will go for dewy skin. What you do have is a beauty regimen, which is a systematic routine.

I suspect some of the women I work with may well have beauty regimes, and oppressive ones, at that. But that's for another day.