Vote for the best verboticism.
DEFINITION: n. A person who constantly corrects other people's grammar. v. To habitually correct the grammar of everyone with whom you speak regardless of the social context or the minuteness the perceived error.
Verboticisms
Click on each verboticism to read the sentences created by the Verbotomy writers, and to see your voting options...
You have two votes. Click on the words to read the details, then vote your favorite.
Englishmajor
Created by: Biscotti
Pronunciation: in-glish-may-jor
Sentence: Alex really took his englishmajorism over the top when he tried to convince people they were speaking with the wrong form of the word (too, two, to).
Etymology: english (a language many people speak) + major (the main course of study at a 4 year university or college)
Lynnetrusstee
Created by: badsnudge
Pronunciation: lin-truss-tee
Sentence: When I told her it was 'an' elephant and not 'uh' elephant, she told me that I was a nal. "Certainly not. I am merely a humble lynnetrustee." I replied.
Etymology: Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves) + trustee
Lexactitude
Created by: karenanne
Pronunciation: lek ZAK tih tood
Sentence: Lexie's constant correcting of what everyone was saying was really wearing thin. I told her I was chomping at the bit to get out of there because I found her lexactitude so annoying, and she responded, "Actually, it's 'champing at the bit,' not 'chomping.'" I told her something she could chomp as I was leaving.
Etymology: lex- (prefix meaning "word") + exactitude
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
Lexie...love it! - Nosila, 2010-06-02: 23:41:00
----------------------------
Grammarnag
Created by: petaj
Pronunciation: gram-a-nag
Sentence: Grandma's grammarnaggery had galled her grandchildren greatly so they gratefully agreed to greet Grandpa and give up Grandma's gramma pie. (Australian version of pumpkin pie)
Etymology: grammar + nag
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
good gracious - gallons of gs - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-26: 11:43:00
Gorgeous! - Jamagra, 2008-03-26: 15:09:00
Good one. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:25:00
----------------------------
Wrecktify
Created by: silveryaspen
Pronunciation: Rek ti fy
Sentence: Killsay was excellent at morphemes and constituents. He was born a Grammar. Killsay was very in tense, and always in the accusative. He was overly generous in sharing his grammar. Killsay would restruckture the speecch of any one. No was was safe from his guydance (guidance) ... shuffling his feet, waving his finger, tweaking your verbose, nitpicking through one's words ... he would wrectify everything said.
Etymology: RECTIFY, WRECK. RECTIFY - correct, amend, revise. WRECK - to damage and destroy with too much revision. --- (Morphemes are basic word-building units. Constituents are sentence-building units. They are true grammatical words, not verbotomies.) Killsay Grammar is a pun on actor Kelsey Grammer, star of the tv show Frasier.
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
Bet she had a bad rectutation.... - Mustang, 2009-01-16: 04:17:00
After she irritates enough people, she might turn a wreckluse. - mweinmann, 2009-01-16: 08:12:00
Thank you for the clever comments. But Killsay is a he ... not a she! Men are guilty of doing this, too! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 10:03:00
nice - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-16: 16:16:00
Killsay Grammar...love it! - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:43:00
----------------------------
Speakertweaker
Created by: mweinmann
Pronunciation: speek - ur - tweek - ur
Sentence: Margerie could not listen to anyone without "tweaking" their statements so that the speaker's grammar and voice inflection were correct in the context of the sentence. Her family and friends became loath to even talk to her for fear of being corrected. Other than being a speakertweaker, Margerie's biggest compulsion was playing Verbotomy every day and checking her scores every hour.
Etymology: Speaker (someone who expresses in language; someone who talks) + tweaker (a person who tweaks something) tweak (fine-tune: adjust finely)
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
nice one! - galwaywegian, 2009-01-16: 11:41:00
----------------------------
Gramminatrix
Created by: Jamagra
Pronunciation: gram/i/nay/tricks
Sentence: "Oh, Gerund, my love" said the gramminatrix, "you have been so very naughty! You have split infinitives as if they were made of bamboo. You have dangled your participles for all the world to see. You have modified some of my articles without permission. You are forever asking questions: which one? what kind? how many? Gerund, I am the one who asks questions. When I ask you "Why?" do not change my "Why?" to "I" and try to add your friend Ed to my plans! I am adverbse to a third person's point of view. It is obvious your grammar needs discipline and now it is time to teach you that lesson!"
Etymology: grammar + dominatrix
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
Can't wait for your sentence on this one. - stache, 2008-03-26: 11:23:00
Maybe she's busy beating improper pronouns outta someone. Great word tho! - purpleartichokes, 2008-03-26: 12:25:00
Dang kids keep interfering with my Verbotomy time!!! Stupid spring break! heh. - Jamagra, 2008-03-26: 12:30:00
Well worth the wait. Gerund is such a bad boy. - stache, 2008-03-26: 12:52:00
Gerund may need a tongue lashing at the "House of the Subjunctive" - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:31:00
----------------------------
Grammarcracker
Created by: artr
Pronunciation: gramerkraker
Sentence: James hates e-mail, not for its intrusive nature but the way most people use it. Worse yet is text messaging. (He refuses to call it texting) When someone sends him a message, he replies with a corrected edition of the original message with commas, hyphens, spelling and proper verb tense. He won't respond to the content until the originator sends it back in its corrected form. His friends have started calling him a grammarcracker. He is amused by the term but won't actually type it because it isn't in the dictionary.
Etymology: grammar (the whole system and structure of a language) + cracker (a fine example of something)
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
I h8 txtn 2. - wayoffcenter, 2009-01-16: 04:46:00
And a very nice play on graham crackers! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 10:12:00
Show them no Grammercy! - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:44:00
Those purists can really contaminate our ebonics. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:35:00
----------------------------
Syntaxidermist
Created by: Nosila
Pronunciation: sin taxi der mist
Sentence: Lynn Gwistik was secretly known as Marian the Grammarian. She was a stickler for correct grammar. She was neither passive nor active, but always very tense. When she fell in love with the object of her desire, Jerry Und, she knew he was not perfect and she would have to try and modify him, because he was such an onomatopoeian. He had prepositioned her and when their ellipsis met, he was superlative. But we all know that love is of a transitive nature and when she tired of his dangling modifiers, her clause came out and she attempted a ligature on him. Jerry had not known that Lynn was a syntaxidermist before she had tried to have him mounted on her trophy wall with her other antecedents. Thanks to his testimony, she is serving an indefinite,run-on, compound sentence for her crimes.
Etymology: Syntax (the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences; studies of the rules for forming admissible sentences;a systematic orderly arrangement & Taxidermist (a craftsman who stuffs and mounts the skins of animals for display)
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
That was a lot of thought on your part - very clever! I voted for yours but forgot to sign in first. - karenanne, 2010-06-02: 15:49:00
I count 18 grammatical references, plus the two punny names. - karenanne, 2010-06-02: 15:51:00
They call me the Queen of the Pundra...what can I say? - Nosila, 2010-06-03: 00:11:00
SO - you are on the site at 11 min. past midnight - THAT'S how you do it. Most of your REM sleep is probably spent on dreaming up words and sentences for Verbotomy! - karenanne, 2010-06-03: 19:37:00
Oh, that's right - I forgot you are on Mountain Standard Time, so it was only 10:11 pm for you. - karenanne, 2010-06-04: 19:17:00
----------------------------
Parsnickety
Created by: Mustang
Pronunciation: par-SNIK-ety
Sentence: Being a stickler for grammar, Miriam was always quick to correct even the most insignificant grammatical blunders, and was especially critical of her boyfriend, Maxim, whose grammar skills were particularly weak.
Etymology: Blend of 'parse' (To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part. ) and 'persnickety' (Overparticular about trivial details; fastidious)
----------------------------
COMMENTS:
Excellent! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 02:09:00
love it - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-16: 16:14:00
He should MAXIMize Miriam's skills as his own personal editor...great word. - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:49:00
----------------------------
Comments:
Today's definition was suggested by stache. Thank you stache. ~ James
stache - 2008-03-26: 09:16:00
You're welcome, JG. Very worthy submissions today
doseydotes - 2008-03-26: 09:22:00
I'm afraid stache's definition is in reference to yours truly. I looked at the suggested words and I'm floored. I might as well give up right now. Great job, everybody.
doseydotes - 2008-03-26: 10:53:00
And I gotta add, "Man, you loving bestest ever!" to my repertoire.
stache - 2008-03-26: 11:47:00
That'd be hoovy of you, 'dotes.
Yes, there are lots of gramudgeons and linguweenies here. Apparently, they're the bestest! ~ James
Today's definition was suggested by stache. Thank you stache. ~ James
KatrinaNhor - 2018-06-02: 07:46:00
[url=http://arabic-perfume.ru/aromat] Каталог парфюмерных масел[/url]