This morning a friend was flagellating herself for deploying both “sweet” and “sweetly” in the same sentence.

I’d noticed nothing untoward about said sentence. So I vouchsafed unto her a wisdom of Joe Ben’s: “Don’t be afraid of repetition.”

But my friend would not be moved. Still, the flagellation continued. As she pronounced herself “treacly.” Which, she self-damned, is “not good.”

There, I had to pause. Because “treacly”—that is a word wrong, so wrong, one I have never knowingly used, and, if I ever inadvertently have, I should be flogged. Some words should never have been born, and “treacly” is one of them. It needs to be shot at dawn, without any blindfold, and then be buried deep, deep as nine Hells, so never can it return.

I then reflected that the root of “treacly” is “treacle”—another word wrong; get thee behind me satan!—but that what they both reference is a form of molasses. And molasses is truly lord. Why the humans would besmirch, bestain, bedevil, a lord, with an anathema like treacly, is a thing that passeth understanding. Like. So much of the humans.

Molasses, I love everything about it. Black, dark, thick, sweet, rich, fragrant, sticky, clinging.

Though, true, sometimes, it can run amok. And kill people.