Verboticisms

Created by: Mustang

Pronunciation: par-SNIK-ety

Sentence: Being a stickler for grammar, Esmerelda was thoroughly parsnickety and always quick to correct even the most insignificant grammatical blunders, and was especially critical of her boyfriend, Leonardo, 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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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: 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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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: gram-puh-lees

Sentence: Mindy is sorry she ever introduced her Grampa to FaceBook. Worse yet is that she friended him. He has become the grammpolice, correcting her every misspelling, every errant comma or apostrophe. Her friends are leaving fewer and fewer comments because he has started "helping" them too.

Etymology: Grammar (the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed) + Grampa (grandfather) + Police (an organized civil force for maintaining order, preventing and detecting crime, and enforcing the laws)

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Created by: mweinmann

Pronunciation: speek - ur - tweek - ur

Sentence: Margerie could not listen to anyone without "tweaking" their statements so that the speaker's grammar and voice inflection were correct in the context of the sentence. Her family and friends became loath to even talk to her for fear of being corrected. Other than being a speakertweaker, Margerie's biggest compulsion was playing Verbotomy every day and checking her scores every hour.

Etymology: Speaker (someone who expresses in language; someone who talks) + tweaker (a person who tweaks something) tweak (fine-tune: adjust finely)

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COMMENTS:

nice one! - galwaywegian, 2009-01-16: 11:41:00

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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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Created by: verbherder

Pronunciation: gram-ahrs-hohl

Sentence: I don't mind someone pointing out an error in speech every now and then, but that grammarsehole did it throughout the entire meeting and we couldn't get anything accomplished.

Etymology:

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COMMENTS:

I like it! Too bad I already used my votes... - readerwriter, 2009-01-16: 12:24:00

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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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| Comments and Points

Created by: kashman

Pronunciation: gram-o-poop

Sentence: Alicia's act of gramopooping every sentence spoken by her mismatched boyfriend Billy Bob was fully justified in her heard; she had a Master's degree in English Language, while poor Billy Bob never even completed his high school education. Even though Alicia was the biggest ever gramopoop Billy has come across, he knew that's the highest level of intellectual dating chain he will ever get, so he kept hoping for Alicia's "gramonstipation".

Etymology: Grammar + Poop (slang for a person regarded as spoiler/fun destroyer).

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COMMENTS:

"Gramonstipation"! Oh, that takes the cake! No pun intended. - diyan627, 2008-03-26: 03:45:00

It seems that Billy Bob knew all about the "dative case" - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:54:00

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| Comments and Points

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: sin taks ass sess or

Sentence: Sidney Nym had grown to hate his wife, Anne T. Nym. Almost since the day they were wed, she had made him tense in his past, present and future due to her incessant correction of his grammar. Their initial conjunction had been predicated on their indicative physical attraction to each other and they had conjugated their relationship regularly then. But she took her role as syntaxassessor very seriously and over the years, she had become the active voice and he the passive one. She was the definite article, he was the indefinite one. He would love to subject her to a taste of her own medicine, but unfortunately, his weak linguistic grasp of the vernacular just gave him a pain in his colon instead. He wished he had interjected a clause in their pre-nup to preclude her from modifying his income should the object of his affection preposition another man and leave. He had pondered many a time abbreviating her time on Earth, but he also had to consider the children: Acro Nym and Homo Nym (yeah, like he didn't get teased in school). He had also considered running off and becoming a transitive, but he was a pronoun and had an ellipsis....he decided to stay and work on his marriage. Besides, compounding his decision was the fact that every article he read said that the sentence for a case like his could be Capital punishment!

Etymology: syntax (studies of the rules for forming admissible sentences; the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences;a systematic orderly arrangement) & tax (make a charge against or accuse) & assessor (an official who evaluates things or judges their merits)

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COMMENTS:

Man, your sentence leaves me speechless. I have nothing-you used 'em all! expertly done. - stache, 2008-03-26: 09:10:00

Astounding sentence! Love the word too! - purpleartichokes, 2008-03-26: 14:11:00

well thought out - bookowl, 2008-03-26: 15:14:00

Absolutely great sentence. Syntax - . // The money collected at the church from sinners. (Aiken Drum, POTD, 31 May 1999) - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:19:00

I'll never look at ellipses the same way again. Simply punderful! - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 22:25:00

Cheers, all...as you may have guessed my nickname is Nosila, Queen of the Pundra! This is a great place to practice my craft...few on the outside understand "us"! - Nosila, 2008-03-26: 22:45:00

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