As you know I like word play. Some call me a word nerd, though I could have been a math geek based on my SAT scores. The affinity is a direct result of being an early reader, a skill nurtured strongly by both parents who were avid readers themselves.

Reading was an escape from a life of relentless small town banality as well as from the chaos of a home ruled by siblings’ disability demands. Within fiction was a wholesomely balanced and better world, a template for the real life I imagined. The biographies of great women that I devoured as a pre-teen assured me that I could be one.

A cherished by-product of all that reading is a vibrantly robust vocabulary. Here are two words I’ve recently contemplated with Word of the Day:

400xNxHoneyBeesOnYellowFlowers.jpg.pagespeed.ic.CeIsszaC6PEfficient: well organized and able to function without waste

Effective: ready for action; producing result, favorable impression; actual

Two disparate definitions for two closely spelled words. My computer thesaurus provides them as equivalent words, synonyms – are they, Constant Reader?

Is effective the same as efficient? It seems so in today’s economy, but…

Which would you rather bee?