Ok, I am weird. Words are so fascinating to me. What cracks me up is the way people misuse language - making up their own words, mispronouncing words, and being generally redundant or peculiar. Then, there's my quirk of having certain words cause me to shudder. Whatever it is, I just don't like the sound of some. So here are some interesting ones for your reading pleasure.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Sounds fishy to me

Liz Carey came up with a good one the other day. She was sitting at a restauarnt with some friends and noticed one of the entrees was Baked Scrod. Ok, I know it is just a fish, but seriously, how appetizing is the word SCROD? Tie that in with "steaming" and "pile" and you have one sick descriptive: a streaming pile of scrod. Ugh!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Sounds good... but it's not real

Liz Carey used this one today...

Re-familiarize.
Sounds legit... but not so. You can familiarize yourself with something, but how can you re-familiarize yourself with something you are already familiar with? We had a laugh over that one.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Weekly words

I have a few revisements on the document. How about revisions?

The word bulge really bothered me this week.

People often say wheelbarrel instead of wheelbarrow (bare-oh).

Adrianna's despised words:
Pus
Saliva
Deceased
Corpse
Paradigm
Postulate
Ain’t

Words she likes to say because they sound like their meaning or they are just fun:
Forlorn
Pop
Snap
Crack / cracker
Actually
Progressive
Adore / adoration
Catapult
Purge
Drat

Monday, August 28, 2006

Weird Words in General

These are just words that cause me to shudder whenever I hear them. I know I am strange, but here's a little list. There are others from other people on here.

moist
drapes
slacks
trousers
panties
folks
prompt - Scott D.
pamper
doily
leak, leaky - James M.
chum
pal
cram
flop
sack
slough
squirt
squat
thrust (put these together and that is one horrific sounding exercise – a squat thrust!)
thong

Strange Sayings, Redundancies, and Other Oddities

People do say peculiar things from time to time. Here are some things I have noticed.

"I have a small little problem..."
"Asking God to lead, guide and direct..." Isn't that the same thing?
"The reason is because..." Do we really need the because?
"That's a whole 'nother thing..." How about another?

Ending any sentence with the word "so" is now a common practice. I am going to the store and will be back in an hour... soooo.. What is that?!

Starting sentences with "anyways..."

It's not I could care less... it is I couldn't care less. This is one my friend, Dave Pacheco, always reminded me of.

I could of went to the beach instead of staying home. Instead of could have.

Mis-pronunciations

These are wrong pronunciations of different words. I know there are plenty of these out there, but these are just a few. Please feel free to submit more!

acrost (instead of across)
chest (instead of chess)
nuclear: new-kyuh-ler vs. new-clear
interesting: in-tresting vs in-ter-esting or even inner-esting.
mature: ma-tyoor vs ma-chur
familiar: fer-mil-yer
sherbet: people pronouce this word as sher-bert, but it should be sor-bay.

Made-up Words

These type of words are just caused by people who truly do not know these are not words, or those who are too lazy to care. I have noticed a growing trend of just throwing a "ness" on the end of a word and thinking that is legitimate.

comfortness - did you mean comfort?
comfortability - again... did you mean comfort?
grammarically - yikes... grammatically?
irregardless - how about regardless? This one is a "real word," but definitely not preferred.
uncomfortableness - how about discomfort?
spiritualness - spirituality might work there.
sublinial - subliminal
hecticness - this might be real, but it just sounds awkward
amplitheater - while it's true that a theatre is designed to amplify sound...amphitheatre is the word you wanted.
misunderestimate - this is a Bushism. I think he was going for underestimate.
embetterment - another Bushism. Perhaps betterment?
strategery - my favorite Bushism. I use it often in jest.

Please feel free to comment and we will add words to the list!