I like lichen.

In honor of my dear high school geography teacher, a first-year fresh from APU, who got really excited when she noticed the screen shots from Pride and Prejudice adorning my binder and made a valiant effort for the rest of the semester to discuss period movies with me before class, I'd like to make an orthoepical aside. One day, dutifully reading from her prepared PowerPoint on the flora and fauna of some country or another, my teacher ended her spiel with a tentative, "and, um, 'litchen.'"

I sat in the darkened, map-lined classroom and felt sad. Being a sixteen-year-old senior in a class of freshmen, I wasn't exactly sure where I stood. Could I correct her without making her look stupid? Her hold was already so shaky; it was all she could do to keep the delinquent who sat in front of me from falling asleep on his desk every day. Besides, I had already caught my art history teacher writing "ascetic" instead of "aesthetic" on the board during vocabulary time, and my English teacher wavering over the spelling of "judgment," with the entire class insisting it was "judgement" against my steadfast adherence to the former, a disagreement that was only resolved when a couple of girls found a dictionary in the back of the room and vindicated me (For the record, the "e" is a British spelling, one never used in the United States, a fact I quickly apprised my teacher of, lest I appear less than knowledgeable on the point).

I decided to keep quiet. That any of the thirty-something ninth graders who were paying attention now thought that "litchen" was kosher gnawed at me, but I told myself I needed to consider my teacher's well-being. I can say it now, though, without any repercussion: it's pronounced "liken." Long "i" sound, hard "k." It comes from the Greek "leichen." Just remember: I like lichen.