I took a class in early 20th century American literature while I was a student at the University of Florida. Every essay, book, or article we read struck someone somehow. I got so disgusted by students saying, “What struck me about…” or, “I was struck by…” that I wrote a response paper asking the professor to imagine me striking a student on the head with my Norton Anthology the next time someone said something about being struck. I found a list of world wide web dangerous words today and it reminded me of that class.
Posts tagged “language”
The English Language
I really get aggravated when people try to argue their way out of what are really meaningless mistakes by saying that the English language is flexible and there aren’t any hard and fast rules and who cares if they’ve spelled something incorrectly because it doesn’t matter as long as you get it and blah, blah,
Accent
Wicked Good Guide to Boston English
The Big Dig
I‘ve talked about this happening IRL with several people recently and tonight I finally remembered to visit the site. bigdig.com details “The Central Artery/Tunnel Project” in Boston. Basically they are taking the entire highway system in Boston and putting it underground. It’s amazing. Fun Fact: Underfund is the only other word in English that begins
a hucklebuck response
my hucklebuck response from Peter Bowler‘s The Superior Person’s Book of Words defenestration n – the act of throwing someone or something out of a window napiform (adj) – shaped like a turnip quiddity n – the essence of something; literally, its whatness a quibble, or trifling nicety subderisorious adj. – mocking, but gently and
Form Letter
From a very poorly-worded letter from an insurance company: Mr. Gagne, your benefits can include: Death… Disability… Unemployment… Knowing the Gagne family will not lose their home no matter what the tragedy er… uh… thanks…
The Weblog Dictionary
The davidgagne.net Weblog Dictionary was nominated for a 2001 Bloggie Award in the category of Best Weblog Resource. <drumroll> For your b l i n g reading pleasure… I present now… The newest featurette…
Heh. Three consecutive posts beginning with heh.
simulblogulation
More Vocabulary with Dan: simulblogulation (si·mull·blog·u·lay·shun) n. the new (and pointless) act of identical content being posted to several weblogs simultaneous. I’m sure the authors believed themselves to be funny, but simulblogulation is simply stupid. like that wasn’t gonna happen!
An Invalid
You can imagine how stupid I felt when I called someone an “invalid” in high school. As if they weren’t valid. And don’t even get me started on “epitome”. ehp-ih-tohm. Fark this farking language! Drives me nutty sometimes, it does.