Verboticisms

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: readerwriter

Pronunciation: jak-grahm-mer

Sentence: In the Teacher's Room, out of her hearing, of course, the red-haired English teacher was referred to as "The Jackgrammar." Even the Physics teacher, a man of few words and much substance, laughed out loud at the label. The barrage of her daily correction was intolerable. Her red pen not only marked her students papers, but the notice board ("final grade's due on...") , the photocopy machine ("put xtra paper here.."), the Principle's (sic) suggestion box. Little did the teachers know that her boyfriend was a tattoo artist and that underneath her long-sleeved blouses, on the skin of her left forearm (unseen in the drawing), was a red and blue heart and the words, "Luv Conquers All."

Etymology: A play on "jackhammer," a pneumatic tool for breaking pavement and drilling rock.

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COMMENTS:

Laughed all the way through the sentence. Luv the way the etymology implies such people hit us like a hammar and break us. - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 10:08:00

Good one! - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:46:00

This one's destined to be a classic. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:34:00

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Created by: purpleartichokes

Pronunciation: speek-rite-ur

Sentence: It's, like, impossible to talk at Mary. Always correcting me, she is. She's a speakrighter determined to make me speak righter.

Etymology: speak, right, speech writer

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COMMENTS:

Dylan Thomas said, 'British broadcasters speak as if they had Elgin's marbles in their mouth," - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:36:00

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Created by: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: pedd ant

Sentence: Hilary , a complete pedaunt, had driven all of her nephews to totally reject education with her "little chats"

Etymology: pedant, aunt

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COMMENTS:

pedant - how nicely arcane... :) - otherguy, 2009-01-16: 04:50:00

Exceptional. Perfectly fits the definition. - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 09:34:00

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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

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COMMENTS:

Lexie...love it! - Nosila, 2010-06-02: 23:41:00

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Created by: Postdog

Pronunciation: Ped - anti - ling - wist

Sentence:

Etymology:

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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)

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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

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Created by: kateinkorea

Pronunciation: lin GWIS bitch

Sentence: I am sick and tired of her linguisbitch, annoying behaviour.

Etymology: LINGUISTICS: connected with language BITCH: complain

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Created by: CanadianAndyCapp

Pronunciation: Tag-mem-ic-rect-if-i-Kay-shun-o-file

Sentence: Verbosity and gramatic eloquence cannot singularly direct the attentive comprehension of the average individual through auditory reception; without the proper corrective parameters being established by a fully qualified tagmemicrectificationophile!

Etymology: Tagmemic (Words) Rectification (Correction) Phile (To admire or be devoted to)

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COMMENTS:

indubitably, a singularly meritoreous and commendable candidate, no component occluded. - stache, 2008-03-26: 11:38:00

Alas, I lament my reiteration of your expression, "singularly." - stache, 2008-03-26: 11:43:00

Albeit unheeding, and contextually distinguishable. - stache, 2008-03-26: 11:45:00

One for "The Dictionary of Longest Verboticisms" - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:46:00

A preeminently jocular submission, (although hard to say in one breath). - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 22:16:00

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