OK, this has been bothering me for a while, but today it really pissed me off. I was reading a piece by John Clayton, a sportswriter for ESPN, in which he described Green Bay Packer Javon Walker as being unstoppable in large part because of an intense off season conditioning “regiment.” A regiment, in case you are wondering, consists of two battalions of soldiers and is usually commanded by a colonel. I’m not sure what Javon has been doing this off season, but I doubt it involves two battalions of soldiers and a colonel. He doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. What Javon has been on is an off season training regimen. A regimen is a strict program of diet, exercise, and/or therapy to achieve a beneficial result. It also has the connotation of being a program that will bring results gradually and over a period of time. Complicating matters further is the word “regime” which is used so often in place of regimen that the definition of regimen is listed as the last (fourth in my dictionary) definition of regime. A regime, of course, is a form of government or a particular administration of government in power. It can also be used for any general set of controls, thought it implies the controls are somehow governmental.

Here’s how to remember this--memorize this sentence. Under the regime of the new drill sergeant, the Marine regiment suffered an even more taxing regimen of morning runs.