It made no difference to me.

But why was the word alternate used?

It reminded me of a few years ago when I received a call from a mayor of a western NSW town who complained that he was having a dispute with his staff over the word alternate.

I gave him my opinion.

I never asked him whether the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of everybody involved

I know that councils throughout NSW, and probably elsewhere, use the word alternate when they mean alternative.

On a visit to another country town recently, I saw a road sign that pointed to a route away from the central business district. It said “alternate route”.

A toilet block in the main park had a sign that indicated, if the toilet was closed, where people could find “alternate facilities”.

Then the deputy principal of a local school sent a note home about the teachers’ strike and mentioned “alternate arrangements”.

The Collins dictionary gives a good example of alternative: “We saw each other on alternate Sunday nights.”

My big Oxford (20 volumes) said alternate means coming each after one of the other kind.

The Webster said “cause to take turns”. Macquarie said “a choice between two things”. Readers Digest said “one thing following another in turn”. Readers Digest gave an example: “He walked alternatively on both sides of the street.

The word alternate goes back to at least 1513.

For a while, the word altern was used. The first use of this word I could find came in 1447.

Alternative is explained in my big dictionary. “Red stripes alternate with the blue ones. One after the other, in turns. Day and night.”

The Heinemann tells it perfectly: “Alternate means in turn, or every second part of a series, whereas alternative refers to choosing between two possibilities.”

So, if Tom and Bill decided to serve each second year in the top job, they would alternate their positions, but in the meantime one of them is regarded as the alternative.

Wordsmith Stephen Murray-Smith says: “An alternate prime minister is a person who shares the position of prime minister with someone else, or it’s now my turn basis. An alternative prime minister is somebody waiting for the chance to displace the present prime minister.”

I admit that words are changing in meaning.

I saw a heading in another newspaper recently that talked about “non-fatal drownings”. The story also talked about “non-fatal drownings”.

I looked up my big dictionary. It described drowning as “to suffer death by submersion in water” or ‘perishing by suffocation in water”. It also talked about sending a ship to the bottom.

Drown appeared in texts in the 13th century with the meaning of suffocating in water or other liquid.

Collins says a person died because “they have gone under water and cannot breathe”. Macquarie says the word means “to suffocate a person by immersion in water”.

Webster says “to deprive of life by immersion in water, or other fluid.

Webster adds to be drunk.

lauriebarber.com; lbword@midcost.com.au