What in life has left you breathless? If something did leave you breathless, wouldn't you be, uh, like dead? Living folks are certainly NOT breathless.
I can think of a few situations in which I've left one breathless. Years ago, I took a physiology class where many poor frogs' brains got scrambled by my lab partners. I never pithed a frog because I couldn't bring myself to turn a living creature into a vegetable. As awful as it was for those poor amphibians, one science experiment has stayed with me forever. It left the creature breathless.
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| Flat Frog Lungs |
After pithing the frog, we removed it's lungs and connected them to a compression unit. I believe those flat gray things on the right are lungs; however, they enlarged quadruple the size and became pinkish with a little air pushed into them. Then we'd release the air and watch them deflate leaving the little guy breathless. This, dear readers, is the only time I've left anyone breathless... unless you count the flies I've swatted or spiders I've sprayed with Windex. I'm too scared to get close enough to smash them, so Windex does more than cure pimples.
I've also made myself almost breathless from running or heavy exertion. I remember doing a runners' series years ago. As depicted in the clip below, I felt like the hippo at the end of the stampede scene from Jumanji. Tired I was, but not totally breathless or I wouldn't be writing this post.
See the fat little hippo trailing behind the fast, fit animals?
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| That's me on the left. |
I wonder if I've ever left a reader temporarily breathless when they laughed so hard they couldn't breath. Hopefully, no one died from reading my blog. Then again, if one laughed that hard, one would eventually pass out, pee one's pants, and life would continue. Whew! Dodged that murder rap. Death by surfing. Whether good or bad, shocking events make me breathmore. If someone were to stick a gun to my head, I'd hyperventilate from fear. Then maybe I'd faint, in which case I'd be breathing less than I had before, but I still wouldn't be breathless. Why did the infamous they define "breathless" as short on breath due to excitement or other strong feelings? It doesn't work that way!
If I caught sight of something magnificent, like the Grand Canyon or a snow-capped mountain, once again, I think I'd go into a state of breathmore with the thrill of it all.
The English language is strange in how we define our words. Next time you see something stupendous, think about it. Does it leave you breathless or breathmore?
