Yes, when you are going at it like a bat out of hell, it might be an idea to take a pause and regroup.

That being a pause as an interruption to an activity.

In music, it’s a mark over a note.

Perhaps it’s a good idea to pause recording a TV show while the ads are on.  Networks don’t like it, but it makes the show make more sense without the distractions of advertisements, sometimes quite inane, or annoying.

What I just said, might give pause to my opposite number in this debate.

Have you been in a conversation, someone says something quite odd, and there’s a pregnant pause?

How did the word pregnant get into the conversation?  That, of course, usually means something significant will follow, but rarely does.  But it can also be a conversation killer where no one says anything.

Is that a wide eye in awe moment?  You did WHAT?

Then there is the word pours, sounds the same but is completely different.

In this case, the man pours water from the bucket on the plants.

Or my brother pours cold water on my plans.  Not literally, but figuratively, making me think twice about whether it would work or not.  Usually not.

Or a confession pours out of a man with a guilty conscience.  AKA sings like a bird.  Don’t you just love these quaint expressions?  It reminded me of a gangster film back in Humphrey Bogart’s day.

It never rains but it pours?  Another expression, when everything goes wrong.  A bit like home renovations really.

Really, it means to flow quickly and in large quantities, ie. rain pours down.

And if that isn’t bad enough, what about paws?

Sounds the same again, but, yes it’s what an animal has as feet, especially cats, dogs, and bears.

One use of it, out of context, of course, is ‘get your paws off me!’

And one rabbit paw might be good luck, but having two rabbit pows, I might win the lottery.

If only….

It’s over!  What is?  Well, almost anything.

A relationship, a bad day, a friendship, a long, monotonous lecture, and dinner.

It’s basically the light at the end of the tunnel, when it’s not the 6:32 express from Clapton, entering the other end of that same tunnel.

You could go over the top, which means, in one sense, over and above the expected, or way beyond the expected but not in a good way.

You could go over the waterfall in a leaky boat.  Not advisable, but sometimes a possibility, if someone fails to tell you at the end of the rapids there is a waterfall.  Just make sure it’s not the same as Niagara falls.

Still, someone has gone over Niagara in a barrel.

Then we could say that my lodging is over the garage, which simply means someone built it on top of the garage.

Branches of trees quite ofter grow over the roofs of houses, until a severe storm brings them down and suddenly they are in your house, no longer over it.

You can have editorial control over a newspaper

In a fight, the combatants are equally trying to shout over the top of each other

And sometimes, when trying to paint a different picture to what is real, you could say the temperature is sometimes over 40 degrees centigrade when you know for a fact it is usually 56 degrees centigrade.  No need for the literal truth here or no one will come.

Then you could say I came over land, assuming that you took a car, or walked when in actual fact you came by plane.  And yes, the whole flight was, truthfully, over land.

I don’t accept my lot in fife, nor do I want a small lot on which to build my mansion!

But the oddest use of the word over is when we describe, in cricket, the delivery of 6 balls.

I’ve listened to cricket commentary, and aside from trying to pronounce the names of the players, if you were unfamiliar with the game, being told this ball was outside leg stump, one of  several deliveries, the last of which was the end of the over.  If the delivery hit the stumps, it is then a wicket, and the batsman is out.

Wow!

Yes, I see the lighthouse, what’s it doing all the way out there?  The thing is, these places are sometimes so remote, I start thinking I should rent one for 6 months and then, without any distractions, I’ll get the blasted book finished.

Until there’s a shipwreck, of course!

Light is of course light, duh.  Turn on the switch and let there be light.

Hang on, didn’t someone else say that, millennia ago?  Someone famous?  It’s on the tip of my tongue.

No! It’s not cyanide…

So, whilst we need it to see everything, it has another meaning…

My, that’s a light load your carrying today, which means not very heavy.

Or, that’s a light-coloured jumper, which means pale.

Oh, and did you light the fire?

And, after you light the fire, do you light out to a safe haven in light traffic because really it was arson, and you got a light sentence the last time enabling you to do it again.

If you are trying to rob someone, then it was a kilo light.

And after a long hard struggle, did you light upon the correct answer?

This is not to be confused with another similar word, lite.

It seems this is only used for describing low-calorie drinks and food, such as lite beer, which seems to me to be a lazy way of not using light

Still, there’s not much other use of the word except as a suffix -lite, but then you’d have to mention -lyte as well.

The message here – just use the damn word light and be done with it.