Vote for the best verboticism.
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.
Verboticisms
Click on each verboticism to read the sentences created by the Verbotomy writers, and to see your voting options...
You have two votes. Click on the words to read the details, then vote your favorite.
Speakrighter
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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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")
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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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Parsnickety
Created by: Mustang
Pronunciation: par-SNIK-ety
Sentence: Being a stickler for grammar, Miriam was always quick to correct even the most insignificant grammatical blunders, and was especially critical of her boyfriend, Maxim, whose grammar skills were particularly weak.
Etymology: Blend of 'parse' (To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part. ) and 'persnickety' (Overparticular about trivial details; fastidious)
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COMMENTS:
Excellent! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 02:09:00
love it - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-16: 16:14:00
He should MAXIMize Miriam's skills as his own personal editor...great word. - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:49:00
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Lynnetrusstee
Created by: badsnudge
Pronunciation: lin-truss-tee
Sentence: When I told her it was 'an' elephant and not 'uh' elephant, she told me that I was a nal. "Certainly not. I am merely a humble lynnetrustee." I replied.
Etymology: Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves) + trustee
Complainisitionist
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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Wordprefect
Created by: OZZIEBOB
Pronunciation: wurd-PREE-fekt
Sentence: "But this is madness. I am trying to stop this company from becoming a grammatical graveyard! Don't you realize it concerns every person in this country - and, moreover, in the greater part of the world to speak English perfectly" Behind his back, in a low voice, someone murmured, " Oh no, has someone split an infinitive again." Things were becoming tense as Bob, flushing crimson, started to leave the room. After few moments, someone said, "Hope that's the last of "Verndracula" for a while. "Verndracula", "Dipthong", "Cretaphor" and, quasi-officially, "The Wordprefect" were but a few pejoratives for Bob, whose habitual correcting of even the slightest grammatical error was driving his colleagues to demential declensia. However, they agreed, that it was a "critical period" in the company's history, and that it would be a "double negative" if they sat there tangentiality, and did nothing to put a "glottal stop" to his psycholinguistic punishment. Firstly they started to mutilate plurals, one boomerang became two "beemearang"; one cuckoo was two "cuckee". And, in an attempt, to render this onomatopedant almost apoplexic: 'Boo-hoo' became "bee-hee" and "boom" became "beem" Reaching for the mountain top of malapropisms, they uttered howlers such as a "let's not talk about tattoo subjects". Gradually, Bob began to realize that he had lost all "soap in his hole" when he began to slip, more and more, into spoonerisms - of course, that should be speenerism.
Etymology: Blend of WORD & PREFECT: School boy,especially in English Grammar schools, with responsibility for th discipline and "proper" behavior of other students.
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COMMENTS:
There's nothing like clouding up the waters with a good mixed metaphor, ya know! - arrrteest, 2008-03-26: 12:04:00
excellent sentence - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-26: 14:00:00
So many hysterical stories today! Very amusing. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 22:29:00
Loved it...it left me almost comma-tose. Period. Doesn't a dipthong sound like the kind of low-cut bathing suit that Borat wore? Isn't a beemerang a carphone call for a yuppie? Cheers!(Is the singular form of that a cher?) - Nosila, 2008-03-26: 22:40:00
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Pedaunt
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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Grammaticizer
Created by: garythesnail
Pronunciation: Gru-mat-ih-SIE-zur
Sentence:
Etymology:
Pricktionary
Created by: rikboyee
Pronunciation: prik-shun-air-ee
Sentence: as soon as i sent the email 'i'll see you their at 8pm', i knew that pricktionary would be on my case
Etymology: prick, dictionary
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COMMENTS:
Just something about this word that I like. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:41:00
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Strictax
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.
Comments:
Today's definition was suggested by stache. Thank you stache. ~ James
stache - 2008-03-26: 09:16:00
You're welcome, JG. Very worthy submissions today
doseydotes - 2008-03-26: 09:22:00
I'm afraid stache's definition is in reference to yours truly. I looked at the suggested words and I'm floored. I might as well give up right now. Great job, everybody.
doseydotes - 2008-03-26: 10:53:00
And I gotta add, "Man, you loving bestest ever!" to my repertoire.
stache - 2008-03-26: 11:47:00
That'd be hoovy of you, 'dotes.
Yes, there are lots of gramudgeons and linguweenies here. Apparently, they're the bestest! ~ James
Today's definition was suggested by stache. Thank you stache. ~ James
KatrinaNhor - 2018-06-02: 07:46:00
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