Someone asked me during a phone conversation today, "Is everything copasetic?" I had not heard that word, copasetic, in quite some time and I began to wonder. Is it even a real word?

I decided to check my dictionary. I had to try several spellings because I have never actually seen the word in print. Sure enough, I found it. According to my dictionary, copasetic means "very satisfactory", origin unknown.

Very satisfactory? Not just a little satisfactory?

I am reminded of the irritating expression "very unique." I mean, something is either unique, which means one of a kind, or not. Something cannot be more or less unique. Same with satisfactory. Something is either satisfactory or it is not.

I consider myself a wordsmith. I love words in all their forms. Wordsmiths typically love to read, write, play Scrabble, look words up in dictionaries and observe, sometimes criticize, the word choices of others. Wordsmiths tend to be sticklers for grammar, too.

While wordsmiths are sometimes considered word snobs, we can also make fools of ourselves. Even the most educated, experienced word junkies sometimes misuse, mispronounce or misspell a word.

No too long ago I had an occasion that called for a complaint letter. Wordsmiths tend to write a disproportionate share of complaint letters, too.

In the course of composing my well thought-out discourse (okay, diatribe), I wished to let the company know I felt they had not been completely honest in their advertising. I wrote, "Your advertising seems designed to misle the public."

My spell check kept hitting on the word "misle". I was stumped. Though I could not recall hearing "misle" in conversation, I had seen "misle" many, many times in print in such context as, "Consumers feel they were misled" or "Voters believe they were misled". Misle, right? Doesn't it mean deceive?

I became frustrated with my spell checking feature and chose a substitute word, just to be on the safe side. But, my quest to figure out the correct spelling of "misle" continued.

I got my answers soon enough.

Another wordsmith and I were chatting later that very day and I asked her how you spell "misle".

"Misle?" she asked. "What does it mean?"

I replied, "You know, misle, as in fool or deceive.

She asked me to use it in a sentence and then she began to laugh. To my horror as a word snob, she told me there is no such word and the word I must be thinking of is misled, pronounced "miss-led'".

Gasp!

I am pretty sure I have never used my non-word in conversation. At least, that is my hope. Though I might have thought it, I cannot recall stating out loud, "don't even try to misle me". I would be embarrassed in a deep and lasting way.

Embarrassment aside, "misle" seems a perfectly good word and I propose we add it to the language.

I hope everyone finds the new word copasetic.