Verboticisms

Created by: artr

Pronunciation: graməstäpō

Sentence: The Grammestapo is always vigilant when it comes to the spoken or written word. Texting just about drives them crazy. One good ”your (or yur) gr8” can send them into apoplexy.

Etymology: grammar (the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general) + Gestapo (the German secret police under Nazi rule)

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Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: sin taks as ses sor

Sentence: Comma Chameleon found her mark in her new boyfriend, Colon. Although he came from good parenttheses, was very dashing, earned a high income bracket and had a hyphenated name, his English skills were dreadful. Although his Grammar had taught him well, Comma found she had to edit everything he said. She became his syntaxassessor and if it were not for the fact that he had a cute asterisk and was great at the old interrobang, she would have put a bullet beside his name before now. It did not hurt that he punctuated his wedding proposal with a large caret diamond ring...

Etymology: Syntax ( the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences) & Wordplay on Tax Assessor (an official who evaluates property for the purpose of taxing it)

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Created by: Kirubeza

Pronunciation: Strikt - acks

Sentence: Kevin's grasp of grammar was not what one would call the best and while his feeble attempt to verbalize how he felt about Jodie would perhaps have come across as cute to someone else, it was not in her nature as a strictax to allow such atrocities go unpunished and she brutally (yet somewhat suggestively) corrected his many grievous errors.

Etymology: A combination of STRICT - Exactly correct - and SYNTAX - The grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence.

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Created by: Ismelstar

Pronunciation: (strunk-tĭf'ĭ-k-kāt'er)

Sentence: With my guest listening attentively, I hastened to the punchline of my story. "After rotting in the cellar for weeks," I crowed, "my brother finally brought up the oranges!" My friends chortled, but my wife rolled her eyes. "Your decomposing brother should stay far away from me!" she began to strunktificate. It was then I realized she was an evil robot, sent from the future with the sole mission of destroying dangling modifiers and misplaced modifiers.

Etymology: A mashup of "Strunk", the last name of the Cornell Professor, best known as the author of the first editions of The Elements of Style, and the verb "pontificate", to express opinions or judgments in a dogmatic way.

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COMMENTS:

Brilliant word, great sentence. Love it! - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:38:00

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Created by: diyan627

Pronunciation: gram-a-mend

Sentence: Rohit was a grammamend I couldn't date, much less tolerate in any setting. So what? -I meant "couldn't bear it" rather than "couldn't bare it". He corrected me in the instant messenger, and my replying with "Ahh" was not good enough. He went on to say that he can't stand people who can't handle criticism, and he thinks I'm petty. He wouldn't move on until I cyber-bowed down before him and thanked him for putting me on the right path. Quite bizarre. At first I didn't mind the correction at all..It didn't even phase me.. It was his insistence for recognition of his brilliance that was the clincher! And he actually thought I'd go out with him for a first-meet after that.

Etymology: grammar + amend

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COMMENTS:

Sounds like a true story. [By the way, you mixed verb tenses in one of your sentences. — Yours Truly, Rohit] Just kidding, diyan. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 23:10:00

Don't worry. I'm not your [hopefully fictional] linguistalker. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 23:15:00

Tigger, "linguistalker" is correct! The linguadventure is a true tale. hahaha... And he did keep calling me and IMing me after that one, but I linguiblocked him. - diyan627, 2008-03-27: 11:48:00

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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: gram-puh-lees

Sentence: Mindy is sorry she ever introduced her Grampa to FaceBook. Worse yet is that she friended him. He has become the grammpolice, correcting her every misspelling, every errant comma or apostrophe. Her friends are leaving fewer and fewer comments because he has started "helping" them too.

Etymology: Grammar (the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed) + Grampa (grandfather) + Police (an organized civil force for maintaining order, preventing and detecting crime, and enforcing the laws)

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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: grampä

Sentence: You could always count on Grammpa to correct his grandchildren whenever they spoke. Sometimes they could barely utter a word or two before he would jump in to rephrase what they had just said. Eventually the children stopped talking at all when he was around. Some think that was his goal in the first place.

Etymology: grammar (the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology) + grandpa (one’s grandfather)

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Created by: simoneshin

Pronunciation: brain-in-the-ass

Sentence: sh*t, you're a real brain-in-the-ass. don't you mean pain-in-the-ass? no you *****

Etymology:

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COMMENTS:

Hahahaha. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:32:00

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Created by: Tigger

Pronunciation: /ling-gwi-STIK-ler/

Sentence: Sarah's customer, Mr. Vern Acular stopped by her office to tell her that the business proposal she'd sent him to review was "written very good," and that he was hoping to award her company the contract for his account. "Well," she said, after a cringe and a long pause. After another long pause Vern asked, "Well what?" confused by her pained expression and stiff body language. She couldn't hold it in any longer — Sarah was an obsessive linguistickler, and all her careful writing was wasted on this ignorant buffoon. "It was written very WELL!" she said. "You said it was written very GOOD' but you should've said WELL instead of GOOD," she explained. Vern thought about that for a few moments and then said, "Alright then, I thought the writing was very WELL."

Etymology: Linguistic - consisting of or related to language (from Latin, lingua "language, tongue") + Stickler - a person who insists on something unyieldingly (from Old English, stihan "to arrange order")

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COMMENTS:

Love your story, Tigger, especially since I have dealt with guys like him myself...you really don't have to make this stuff up, do you? - Nosila, 2008-03-26: 02:00:00

It took me a minute to get the Vern Acular ref. heehee :) Hilarious he came back and said the writing was well. I hope he did that on purpose out of spite! - diyan627, 2008-03-26: 02:32:00

Wonderful word. I tend to suspect the percentage of linguisticklers among verbotomists is higher than that in the general population. - stache, 2008-03-26: 11:26:00

I tend to think of verbotomists as being lingui-ticklers - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-26: 11:47:00

Ahhhhh, I posted a similar word w/out seeing yours first. Your sentence, however, is much better than mine. You've got my vote. - werdnurd, 2008-03-26: 15:17:00

Love yore sentence and word! Someone said, "A grammarian is one who thinks it is more important to write correctly than to write well". - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:16:00

So true, Bob and stache. I bet everyone here has their pet-peeves about bad grammar though, things that just make you cringe. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 21:43:00

I love "lingui-ticklers" too, Jabberwocky. That's an excellent verbotomy for 'verbotomists'. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 21:46:00

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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)

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COMMENTS:

nice one! - galwaywegian, 2009-01-16: 11:41:00

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