Words, words, words...

Do you ever read the Corrections section in a newspaper?  I guess editors need to correct factual errors, but they don't want to take up too much space to do it.  They don't want it really obvious that they screwed up, but want to be able to point out that they fixed their errors as soon as they were found.  

I'm guessing that is where words like "misspoke," "misstated," and "misidentified" came from.  They are in my computer's dictionary, but I'll bet they are relatively new additions, added because of media use.  They sound nicer than "didn't know what I was talking about," or "didn't check to see if I was right."

Oh, you know you can buy "treed property"?  I doubt that's the same as a treed mountain lion, but it does use fewer words than a "property that has living trees."  In print media that have to be purchased, space is money. So might someone have misstated that treed property was available?  Is graveled property available?  Weeded property?  (Wait, that means something different.)  Did I just misspeak?  Geez.