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BS: Mangling the English Language
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Subject: Mangling the English Language From: The Beanster Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:42 AM Over the course of the last several years, I've been compiling a list of words I've heard people pronounce in ...um... unique ways. Now, I don't mean to be unkind and of course, I would never call attention to this at the time I hear them--and sometimes, the "new" version of the word I like even better than the original. I just thought some of you may also know a few of these creative concoctions to share here. A few of my favorites: confusement (confusion) misconscrewed (misconstrued) biosexual (bi-sexual) nippelate (manipulate) skipsophrenic (schizophrenic) mybrain headache (migraine headache) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Thomas the Rhymer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 01:14 AM Oh Beanster, who'd a thunk it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Lepus Rex Date: 10 Sep 00 - 01:18 AM If we wanna mangulate the language, it's our right. Don't go gettin all snotty with that edjumacation of yours! ---Lepus Rex |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Oversoul Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:01 AM (axed)asked;(mist-drink)mixed-drink; I know what you mean, but just relax while all these bottom-feeders gum you into an orgasm of guilt for being real. Don't worry, they don't leave any permanent marks! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Racer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:10 AM The only one that really bothers me is 'nucular' verses 'nuclear'. It's like someone is scratching their nails on a chalkboard. I've actually heard professors with a doctrate in chemistry doing this. For some reason, they have no problem with talking about the nucleus (not nuculus) of an atom. I'm obsessive. -Racer |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: CarolC Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:44 AM I think that's the one I hate the most too, Racer. I also hate it when high government officials say "Judisherary" instead of "Judiciary", and also (and almost all politicians do this), when they say "Presnighted States" instead of "President of the United States". Then there's always "prostrate" instead of "prostate". Carol |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Ebbie Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:49 AM Cavalry for Calvary in gospel songs... Curdles my spine. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Ebbie Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:58 AM A friend wrote a song in which he mentions 'tempetuous sea'. I believe he means 'tempestuous'. And how do you tell a fella that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:35 AM Burglary, pronounced burgalry.. aAAAAAAAARARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH. I'm quite happy with fingernails down the chalk board, but say burgalry and I'm up the wall!!!! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Giac Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:58 AM Confested - infested/congested, as: I wouldn't live down there, it's too confested. waps - Look out, that waps will sting you! pastgetti - We had pastgetti for supper. kivvers - Put more kivvers on the bed. swored - He brandished a swored (audible w). sar - She sar the light. hit don't - Hit don't make a damn to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Bud Savoie Date: 10 Sep 00 - 06:15 AM Racer, it's "versus", not "verses." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Banjer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 07:13 AM A boss one time could make us climb the walls every time he told us that we must be 'versable'. The illiterate boob was trying to say 'versatile'...A lot of my pet peeves have already been listed above...Espcially Ebbies, but in reverse...I get so damn tired of hearing Civil War reenactors talking about the calvary troops. Does any one work in the automotive field and hear folks refering to their 'university joint', instead of the universal joint? How about where there are machine parts with splines that slide into other splined parts being called 'spleens'? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Lena Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:19 AM "Mi GRABbi quella borsa?"(instead of:mi prendi quella borsa?!) "E' sotto il TABBoLo"(I.O:e' sotto il Tavolo) The first two examples I can think of the crazy italian/aussie english my sister and I can speak sometimes. Besides,I 'm used to it in italian.It's a much more rogorous and difficult language,since it has been a higher class/intellectual/literary language for centuries before being forced to normal people and everyday life,and it's very demanding.You'll hardly have a conversation without one or two manglings. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Alice Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:48 AM A couple of years ago my son had a science teacher who would say larnyx instead of larynx and pharnyx instead of pharynx. She would also say alvioli instead of alveoli, making it sound like a pasta, my son said. Some kids in the class reading the text noticed she was mispronouncing the words. After a long time, they pointed out her mistake. I wonder how many of those kids will now pronounce the words incorrectly. (I home school now.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: MandolinPaul Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:49 AM "That's a whole nother issue" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Sorcha Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:08 AM My grandmother said alumium (aluminum), cimmammom,and chimbley. Two that drive me nuts are often (voice silent t) and complected (complexioned). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:33 AM I don't mind manglings caused by naivete or by being a non-English speaker, but I do mind manglings caused by pretentiousness. The one that comes to mind most often is "comprise." Nobody seems to remember whether big things comprise little or little comprise big. (Do 50 states comprise the Union or does the Union comprise 50 states? I forget.) Anyway, most users don't even know there is a right way. I wish people would just quit using any form of "comprise." BTW, I have heard perfectly cultivated English speakers say "hit" for "it." It depends what sounds preceded it. We probably all do it and have never thought about it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: rabbitrunning Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:49 AM I ain't gonna say ain't no more cause ain't no in the dictionary...
Although, I think "complected" may be...
BTW, big things are "comprised of" little things, and little things "comprise" big things, at least so my eleventh grade English teacher led us to believe. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Bill D Date: 10 Sep 00 - 10:52 AM "importating"..... and certain British journalists mangling OTHER languages..like the Central American country of 'Nick-uh-RAG-you-uh' |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Dee45 Date: 10 Sep 00 - 11:05 AM I hate it when someone who is relaying a story says he/she goes instead of he/she replies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Bagpuss Date: 10 Sep 00 - 11:38 AM My pet hate is football (soccer for you yanks) commentators who insist on saying "subtitute" and "sikth" instead of substitute and sixth. Bagpuss |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: GUEST Date: 10 Sep 00 - 11:38 AM Wow, I'm like, and so, she's like.... and I'm like well, DOH!!!.... The vernacular use of the word "so" which has crept into the local youth idiom in the last twenty years. It isn't a mangle exactly...it is an applicationw hich I find really irritating. You stick it at the end of a sentence with the idea that it is a polite way to avoid an imperative. "I'm going to put my lawn sprinkler right where you are about to park, so....". I always want to say "So, what? Can't you finish the sentence?". A. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Alice Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:23 PM momento instead of memento (mem - root of memory) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:32 PM Sorry Sorcha, Complected is the archaic version, as seen on many a recruiting form..... but I know what you mean... LTS - who also hates people who say chimbley.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Brendy Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:32 PM My old History teacher in school would say 'proctol', for 'protocol', and always pronounced 'Hertzegovina' as 'Herezgovnia'. Couple of favourites from BBC newsreaders: B. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Jon Freeman Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:48 PM Leenia, the changing of the spelling of a word because of what precedes it is part of Welsh (and I believe other Celtic languages) - try and get your head round Welsh mutations at: http://www.dalati.com/cornel/mutate.html Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Banjer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 01:55 PM One of my pet irritants is people adding letters to words that don't need them and leaving out others. For example...I once worked with an automotive parts man from the Boston area. He could not pronounce the letter R unless he used it where not needed. He would say cah pahts instead of car parts but he would have no trouble telling you those cah pahts came from a weahouse in Tampar (Tampa) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Mrrzy Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:09 PM In sports: Feel Gold instead of Field Goal. And what about Brent Favre, pronounced Farve? Is that his choice? In medicine, using visualize when they mean see. In my imagination I can visualize my gall bladder, but on the ultrasound you can see it. In regular life: I like that English is constructivist, in that you can verb nouns and add -ness or -esanytime some new term is coined out of co |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Mrrzy Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:16 PM In sports: Feel Gold instead of Field Goal. Also, is it Brent Favre's choice that his name be pronounced Farve? In medicine: the use of Visualize for See. I can visualize my gall bladder in my imagination, but I can see it on an ultrasound image. In standard English: the coining of new, constructed terms when there is a perfectly viable extant term. Now, I truly enjoy the constructionism English allows, what with nouning verbs (or verbing nouns), adding -esque to anything, and so on. But why Wellness when we have Health? In slang English: I don't mind Going for Saying nearly as much as I'm comma like comma. As in, "I said 'A' then he went 'B' so I'm, like, 'C'..." - and so on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Mrrzy Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:18 PM As you see, I bipped off before clicking Submit so I had to redo it. Interesting how differently phrased things are that way... but anyway, another Pet Peeve is saying Antidote for Anecdote. Amazing how often that happens, when you'd think people using words like those instead of Cure or Story would know better... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Metchosin Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:21 PM Fingernails down the blackboard for me....When my children were small, we would constantly get notices from the school regarding the benefit of eating "healthy lunches" with all those "healthy fruits and vegetables". As I was not deliberately in the habit of knowingly sending my children to school with diseased fruits and vegetables in their bags, I found this particularly irksome. Now the term "healthy food" is commonplace and makes me wonder if the word "healthful" has been permanantly dropped from the English language. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 10 Sep 00 - 02:27 PM Rabbitrunning, the United States comprises fifty states, not "is comprised of". Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Amos Date: 10 Sep 00 - 04:08 PM Been down that battle before, David, and I am afraid we are losing it. The bureaucratic uglies have infected it to the extent that "comprise" is used to mean either "compose or consitute" or "consist of". Sigh. Some dictionaries are such wusses about holding the line. It is well and good that English is a volatile and evolving language, but I would love to see a standard held that rejected regressive evolution born of stupidity and ignorance, while honoring those changes creatively added tot he language to reflect new thoughts and new situations. I think there's an important distinction to be made. Those who reinvent the language because they are too lazy or ignorant to know it in the first place are wasting a lot of hard cognitive hitory, and of course they will be condemned to repeat it... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Jon Freeman Date: 10 Sep 00 - 04:09 PM It appears that I have been getting comprise wrong as I have been using "is comprised of". My dictionary (Chambers) defines it as "v.t. to contain or to include" and saying "the US is contained of... would certainly grate". I checked that little program, Guru Net, that someone recommended in a Mudcat thread. Here is what it had to say on the usage: USAGE NOTE: The traditional rule states that the whole comprises the parts; the parts compose the whole. In strict usage: The Union comprises 50 states. Fifty states compose (or constitute or make up) the Union. While this distinction is still maintained by many writers, comprise is increasingly used, especially in the passive, in place of compose: The Union is comprised of 50 states. In an earlier survey, a majority of the Usage Panel found this use of comprise unacceptable. Jon
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: sophocleese Date: 10 Sep 00 - 04:43 PM Hell, I've pismronounced a few worms in my day. In highschool I was in a play about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I can still remember the frustrations of trying to get one young woman to say dWarves not dRorves and then I went and said, "Beauty withers with the ears(years)". OOps!
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: R! Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:23 PM Earlier this year, this appeared in a memo routed to all employees in our department: "...for all intensive purposes..." rather than the more well-known "intents and purposes." Don't forget tenderhooks for tenterhooks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:36 PM AArrrggghh, compared with, instead of compared to..... drives me up the wall...... LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:40 PM And draw instead of drawer.... ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Parson Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:40 PM My Dad had one when I was growing up. It wasn't until I was a teenager that it suddenly dawned on me what he was saying. He would be telling about something funny that happened at work & when the punch line came, he would say, "We come miss laughing." And I couldn't figure how what come miss had to do with it, until I suddenly realized one day that he was saying "commenced." This, BTW is a common Appalachian expression. There are a ton of them. I couldn't begin to list them all. But there is one other word, I will share. It is the plural for the word "Test." As in, I'm going to the hospital tomorrow for tests. As a Pastor, it is all you can do to keep a straight face & look serious and concerned when a lady comes up to you and says, "I'm going to the hospital tomorrow to get some testes." With that, I will say, "Good bye." Randall |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Sep 00 - 05:56 PM Like my sister who went in for a hysterical rectomy.... and she used to WORK in a hospital!! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Helen Date: 10 Sep 00 - 06:09 PM * remuneration confused with renumeration (often in the same sentence by one of my previous bosses, who loved buzzwords and used to make me wish there was a blackboard handy for fingernails) * a school friend in primary (elementary) school used to say hos'-dib-le instead of hospital * not pronouncing the 'r' is an Oz thing. A US friend of mine used to comment on it frequently. "It's Pe'terrrr, not Petah". I tried to tell her the name of a local street one day and she kept saying "Chew-dah, what is Chew-dah? Oh, you mean Too-dorrr (Tudor)?" * rabitrunning, as a former "li-berryan" I have to confess I love annoying people by referring to the "liberry" only half the people I say it to don't realise that it is a joke - i.e a quarter of them say it that way too, and the other quarter get disdainful and think I don't know any better. Just my strange sense of humour. * I like using the word burg-u-lar too. * a Polish teacher I had once used to say "com'putent" because she thought it had something to do with computers. * I find that having studied Latin makes it a lot easier to keep track of words and spelling - it's hard to confuse money and numbers in the remuneration/renumeration mix-up? There are heaps more that I could list but this is enough for now - but I'll probably be aware of people's word usage now and pick up a few more. I heard a really funny one the other day but I can't remember it right now. Helen
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Jon Freeman Date: 10 Sep 00 - 06:22 PM Thinking of hospitals, one that used to tickle my mother was a little old lady with "creptipuss knees" (crepitus). Continuing with things medical, I have met people who have said "I've got blood pressure" not to mention having a cardiac heart or renal kidneys, etc. Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: GUEST,Kit Date: 10 Sep 00 - 06:23 PM One that makes my blood run cold is when people put an apostrophe in its when it shouldn't have one - like "I gave the cat IT'S milk". AAAHHH!!! My English teacher actually pronounced "hyperbole" phonetically, like hyper-bowl. Guess that's like the Superbowl only bigger. Also gets me when people say "I won you" when they mean "I beat you" - that's a really annoying one... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Banjer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 06:54 PM It is interesting to see how meanings of words have so totaly changed over the years. I had a bad time in elementary school when our music teacher was trying to get us to learn some Christmas carols. I wasn't about to 'don my gay apparel'. In 'My Old Kentucky Home' 'the (insert your own favorite word here) are happy and gay' A word that once meant happy and carefree now means something totaly diferent! Why? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: guinnesschik Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:18 PM One word: Conversate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: guinnesschik Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:21 PM I once heard Michael Ervin of the Dallas Cowboys say, "It behooves the hell outta me why we lost that game." I laughed 'til I cried. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Jon Freeman Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:54 PM How about "can you borrow me £1 [or whatever]?". Does "Me and [whoever] did [whatever]" annoy others? I hate it. Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: bob jr Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:31 PM my mancurian cousins say likkle instead of little,booook instead of book ditto for coooook and looook (spoken to rhyme with luke) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Ebbie Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:44 PM Jon, Me and so and so doesn't bother me as much as, for instance, 'he told my wife and I, etc.' No one would say 'He told I', so why don't they see that my wife and I is also not correct?! (Especially since I'm female.) Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mangling the English Language From: Thomas the Rhymer Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:54 PM Jabberwoky? Walt Whitman? Creativacious Carnivorosity! Stupendocial Schooleries... |