Verboticism: Linguistickler
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.
Linguistickler
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")
Points: 638
Comments: Linguistickler
Nosila - 2008-03-26: 02:00:00
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?
diyan627 - 2008-03-26: 02:32:00
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!
stache - 2008-03-26: 11:26:00
Wonderful word. I tend to suspect the percentage of linguisticklers among verbotomists is higher than that in the general population.
Jabberwocky - 2008-03-26: 11:47:00
I tend to think of verbotomists as being lingui-ticklers
werdnurd - 2008-03-26: 15:17:00
Ahhhhh, I posted a similar word w/out seeing yours first. Your sentence, however, is much better than mine. You've got my vote.
OZZIEBOB - 2008-03-26: 17:16:00
Love yore sentence and word! Someone said, "A grammarian is one who thinks it is more important to write correctly than to write well".
Tigger - 2008-03-26: 21:43:00
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: 21:46:00
I love "lingui-ticklers" too, Jabberwocky. That's an excellent verbotomy for 'verbotomists'.