Verboticisms

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: doseydotes

Pronunciation: ˈgra-mər-ˈä-dər

Sentence: Jacob turned to his dad. “Me and Jim are going to the mall . . .” “Jim’s not mean,” Tim interrupted. “What?” Jacob asked. “Jim’s not mean. You said he was mean,” replied his dad. “Oh, DAD. JIM AND I are going to the mall,” said Jacob, exasperated. “Your dad is such a grammarauder,” whispered Jim. “TELL me about it,” grumbled Jacob.

Etymology: From the Greek, gram, meaning "really old lady with really good cookies"; from the Neptune, mer, meaning "handsome eunich water sprite"; from the Shyamalan, aud, meaning "strangeness bordering on scariness which is somehow still lucrative"; and from the Irish, er, a place-holder in speech which prevents others from talking while one thinks of something else to say.

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COMMENTS:

Sounds somehow familiar. And the obscure etymological sources from whence your creations spring never cease to amaze. - stache, 2008-03-26: 10:58:00

marauder could be someone who goes in search of blunder - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-26: 11:41:00

Grammatical Error - When Grandma screws up. Interesting blend. (Johnny Hart, The Book of Phrases - BC Comic Strip) - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:10:00

Oh, that's my #1 pet peeve — when people say 'me and ' where they should say ' and I'. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 23:01:00

That didn't show up right. I meant — when people say 'me and [so-and-so]' where they should say '[so-and-so] and I'. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 23:03:00

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Created by: jajsr

Pronunciation: Come-plane-i-z-i-shun-ist

Sentence: Delores was quite the complainisitionist. When her husband came down for breakfast and asked, "Is that grits I smell", she quickly replied, "you mean, ARE those grits I smell".

Etymology: Combination of "Complain" - to express grief, pain or discomfort; and "sition" from composition - an intellectual creation

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COMMENTS:

I'll bet he smelled them when the plate impacted his face. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:39:00

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Created by: rebelvin

Pronunciation: wordnerd

Sentence: She wordnerds me every time I say the least thing grammatically incorrect.

Etymology: word+nerd

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COMMENTS:

Hey, quit making fun of the username! - werdnurd, 2008-03-26: 15:23:00

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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

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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

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Created by: Stevenson0

Pronunciation: lin/guwee/nie

Sentence: Jonathan was definitely a gifted person, but he was so annoying because he always corrected everybody's language. He was definitely a linguweenie.

Etymology: LINGUWEENIE - noun - from LINGUIST (a specialist in language and linguistics) + WEENIE (nerd, geek)

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COMMENTS:

fantastic - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-16: 16:14:00

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Created by: mercury258

Pronunciation: gram-you-scribe

Sentence: Jenna: Where'd you go to? My water broke and I need a ride to the hospital! Sarah: I think you mean to say, "To where did you go?" Jenna: Quit grammuscribing me and give me a ride!

Etymology: From Grammar and to Prescribe

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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: Mustang

Pronunciation: werd - zill - uh

Sentence: Brunhilda was a stickler for grammar and had become a veritable wordzilla at parsing every one of Geoffrey's utterings.

Etymology: Blend of word and Godzilla

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COMMENTS:

I parse on this one. Good blend. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:39:00

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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)

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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

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