Verboticisms

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: sin tax

Sentence: Joel knew that contant correction of his dreadful grammar by the lovely Davina was the sintax he had to pay for her affections.

Etymology: Sin (commit a sin; violate a law of God or a moral law) & Tax (set or determine the amount of (a payment such as a fine);use to the limit) & Syntax (the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences)

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Created by: stache

Pronunciation: day-mĭn'uh-mōn'-r

Sentence: Bert was away on business when Loni's delivery date came, so he got the news of the blessed event by phone. "Its a pair of twins, darling!" she told him with glee. A habitual deminimoaner, he couldn't help himself. Knowing it would, at best, dampen the joyous mood, he spouted in reply, "REDUNDANT!"

Etymology: de min·i·mis, Latin, trifling or unimportant; moaner, one who moans, complainer.

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COMMENTS:

Perhaps it was tautology - . // The study of nervous tension. (Gil Krebs, POTD, 28 Jun 2000) - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:24:00

Great sentence! LOL. - Tigger, 2008-03-26: 22:02:00

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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.

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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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Created by: sunights

Pronunciation:

Sentence:

Etymology:

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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: jcottrell

Pronunciation:

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: 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

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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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