Verboticisms

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: 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: 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.

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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

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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: DaddiezGyrl

Pronunciation: cun-ing-LEEN-gwest, n. cun-ing-LEEN-gus, v. intr.

Sentence: The unmistakable voice was none other than that of the town's Cunninglinguist; there to interrupt, correct and embarrass her.

Etymology: Blend of Cunnilingus+Cunning+Linguist Cunning: showing inventiveness and skill Linguist: a specialist in linguistics and or languages Also deriving from Cunnilingus: oral stimulation; usually involving the vulva or clitoris

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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: 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: lplybon

Pronunciation: "Kun-EE-leeng-WIST"

Sentence: Everyone dreads the Thursday afternoon staff meeting: Bob, the office manager, makes what should be a 30-minute meeting addressing staff concerns a 2-hour lecture on correct grammar. Bob is such a cunnilinguist he spends more time correcting every little mistake people make when speaking than actually hearing what they are saying. If Bob reminds us that his name is a palindrome one more time, I swear I will scream!

Etymology: Combination of the words "cunning" and "linguist"

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COMMENTS:

Brilliant !!! - XMbIPb, 2010-06-02: 19:34:00

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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)

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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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