Syllabic trouble

So have you ever had one of those moments when you say a word or write something in an email then think to yourself, god is that actually what it means? When I was a kid and started coming across words with more than two syllables I struck upon the word 'emancipated' and began using it with gay abandon. Great word, five syllables, how big is my brain. So it was 'emancipated this' and 'emancipated that,' I just loved sprinkling 'emancipated' throughout my day.

My five-syllable world fell apart when I happened to mention to someone something about a model looking "totally emancipated, I mean, like she hadn't eaten for years"...

...

Ok so I meant 'emaciated'. So I'd completely overlooked an 'n' and a 'p' and several thousand years of oppression, a couple of fairly major civil rights movements and a pretty significant ride on a bus in 1955.

So in light of this dark moment in my kiddy past I sometimes have little word panic attacks and just as I hit 'send' on an email think "crap, does 'moniker' actually mean 'nickname' or have I just made that up? Is a 'moniker' actually a type of Dutch letter-opener, in which case, totally inappropriate? OH MY GOD I'VE DONE IT AGAIN WHY WON'T SOMEONE STOP ME?"

I've got some issues with how I pronounce 'chameleon' too but that's for another day.