Once upon a time I had a very annoying friend who, whenever we fell out, used to admonish me with the phrase, “Clare, du bist immer so inkonsequent!”. At the time, this used to annoy me considerably, but with the benefit of several years distance I am able to admit that he did have a point. “Inkonsequent” is a very good word to describe me. My dictionary translates it rather inadequately as “inconsistent”, which is a translation I don’t like. In English, inconsistent is a word I would only tend to use in mathematics or logic. A set can be inconsistent if it gives rise to a paradox, and any logical argument I have the misfortune to attempt to forumulate generally ends up being inconsistent too. “Inkonsequent” seems to me to have a much richer meaning than this. It implies that I don’t know my own mind, which is regrettably true. (more…)