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: 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: leechdude

Pronunciation: gra-ma-garf

Sentence: youre such a gramagarf Dave

Etymology: grammar

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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: GlobalGallery

Pronunciation: Kon-ver-sedit-ta

Sentence: Mike was annoyed by the continual corrective interjections of his fiance Tanya every time he spoke. He called off the wedding because her incessant conversediting had become unbearable.

Etymology: 1.Conversation - informal interchange of thoughts by spoken words. 2.Editor - one who edits material for publication.

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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: 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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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: 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: karenanne

Pronunciation: lek ZAK tih tood

Sentence: Lexie's constant correcting of what everyone was saying was really wearing thin. I told her I was chomping at the bit to get out of there because I found her lexactitude so annoying, and she responded, "Actually, it's 'champing at the bit,' not 'chomping.'" I told her something she could chomp as I was leaving.

Etymology: lex- (prefix meaning "word") + exactitude

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COMMENTS:

Lexie...love it! - Nosila, 2010-06-02: 23:41:00

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