Verboticisms

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: petaj

Pronunciation: gram-a-nag

Sentence: Grandma's grammarnaggery had galled her grandchildren greatly so they gratefully agreed to greet Grandpa and give up Grandma's gramma pie. (Australian version of pumpkin pie)

Etymology: grammar + nag

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COMMENTS:

good gracious - gallons of gs - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-26: 11:43:00

Gorgeous! - Jamagra, 2008-03-26: 15:09:00

Good one. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-26: 17:25:00

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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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Created by: Postdog

Pronunciation: Ped - anti - ling - wist

Sentence:

Etymology:

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Created by: readerwriter

Pronunciation: jak-grahm-mer

Sentence: In the Teacher's Room, out of her hearing, of course, the red-haired English teacher was referred to as "The Jackgrammar." Even the Physics teacher, a man of few words and much substance, laughed out loud at the label. The barrage of her daily correction was intolerable. Her red pen not only marked her students papers, but the notice board ("final grade's due on...") , the photocopy machine ("put xtra paper here.."), the Principle's (sic) suggestion box. Little did the teachers know that her boyfriend was a tattoo artist and that underneath her long-sleeved blouses, on the skin of her left forearm (unseen in the drawing), was a red and blue heart and the words, "Luv Conquers All."

Etymology: A play on "jackhammer," a pneumatic tool for breaking pavement and drilling rock.

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COMMENTS:

Laughed all the way through the sentence. Luv the way the etymology implies such people hit us like a hammar and break us. - silveryaspen, 2009-01-16: 10:08:00

Good one! - Nosila, 2009-01-16: 20:46:00

This one's destined to be a classic. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 15:34:00

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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: 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: 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: 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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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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