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: 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: jcottrell

Pronunciation:

Sentence:

Etymology:

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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: graməstäpō

Sentence: The Grammestapo is always vigilant when it comes to the spoken or written word. Texting just about drives them crazy. One good ”your (or yur) gr8” can send them into apoplexy.

Etymology: grammar (the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general) + Gestapo (the German secret police under Nazi rule)

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Created by: bookowl

Pronunciation: par/si/drone/ee/us

Sentence: The Latin teacher was so parsidroneous that he put the class to sleep.

Etymology: parse + drone + parsimonious

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COMMENTS:

Excellent. The first time I read it I thought it was 'pardidronerous,' which brought to mind 'grammonerous.' Shame one gets only one submission, eh? - stache, 2008-03-26: 10:44:00

er, 'parSidronerous.' - stache, 2008-03-26: 10:45:00

You parsed 100/100! - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:43:00

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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: 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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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: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: pedd ant

Sentence: emma was a pedaunt, she took after her gramma

Etymology: pedant, aunt

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COMMENTS:

it's all relative...good one! - Nosila, 2010-06-02: 23:43:00

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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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