Wednesday's Word -- Negotiate

Arrrg.  Husband and I are in the midst of trying to buy a house.  We bought our first (and current) house 11 years ago, so this would be our second.  The market now is completely different than it was 11 years ago.  One would think that given the housing crisis and all, we would be having an easy time of it.  But alas, too many other people apparently want to snatch up the same deal we're eyeing.  We shall see.  I've been trying so hard to be cold, hard and rational.  But when I found myself daydreaming about my clothes hanging in that house's amazing closet, I knew I was cracking.  Snap out of it!  Yes, we shall see.

Negotiate

In terms of common usage, "negotiate" usually means "to arrange or settle by discussion and mutual agreement" (as in, make a deal).  But at the most basic level, the word comes from the Indo European root ne, which means "not."  Other words from the same root include naught, neither, never, nill, no, none, nothing, nay, null, annul, nullify, annihilate, neglect, negate, and amusingly enough negligee.  So that's not very encouraging, is it?  

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.  You know, for the sake of my clothes.  They deserve to spread out in the closet of their dreams.    

Post script.  We did get the contract after all, but it's a short [read SLOW] sale, and the sellers needs to take care of the tiny detail of convincing the bank that they should qualify for a short sale.  Going to be an uphill battle I'm afraid.  I suppose we'll be patient.  This closet is pretty close to nirvana.  After we got the house under contract, my husband (who is a realtor) stopped by the house one day to check on it.  He found another couple there looking at the house (apparently their realtor didn't realize the house was under contract).  My husband told me that the wife almost started to cry when she saw the closet.  I completely understand.