Hence, I Would Rather Not Watch Desperate Housewives Any Longer

I don't know why but I can't seem to stop watching "Desperate Housewives." It was fairly entertaining (in a mindless, trashy sort of way) its first year, but it has gone downhill ever since. At any rate, I bring the show up because on last Sunday's episode a character named Mike, who is a plumber, repeatedly used the word hence because for some reason he thought it made him sound smarter and classier. Perhaps he should have had his druthers about something because, according to the "Dictionary of American Regional English," the word druthers has a proven record of being used more often by college-educated people.

Druthers is an interesting word. It is basically a contraction of "I would ruther" (ruther being a dialectical form of rather). But if you think about it, druthers is also similar to a portmanteau word because it takes some of its sound and meaning from both would and ruther.

And now back to hence......the word hence is loosely defined as "from this fact," according to the etymology website, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php. And of course there is thence "from that place" and whence "from when."

Just wanted to throw out some additional verbiage for the "Desperate Housewives" scriptwriters to consider.