being the super-anal grammar and language person that i am, i always notice when people say things repeatedly, or wrongly. when RL and i started dating he said "to tell you the truth" a lot, which i thought was funny. when i pointed it out he stopped doing it. i sure hope you're still telling me the truth RL!
he also said, "least we forget" until i corrected him. apparently all of his life he'd been laboring under the assumption that the least we could do is not forget.
my current boss' name is frank. he says "frankly" a lot. as in "frankly, i think the design isn't what we need right now." it's like he's using himself as an adjective. like, what other way are you going to do things but frankly? i wonder if he notices the inherent irony. i do things tee-plately. how do you do them?
one of my professors is moroccan, though he's lived in the states for awhile and is a working journalist. for the most part he's got the language down, but there are always a few words he just can't pronounce right. my cohort and i sit in class and make notes of his weird pronunciations and then compare after class. the other day he was telling us a story about a coroner, but the way he said it sounded like Tony Danza ordering a mexican beer. Cor-OWN-er ("Hey Angela, go get me a coroner."). it was hard not to giggle in class.
but my absolute favorite saying of this professor is the substitution of the word "gouge" for the word "gauge." as in, "think about your surroundings and gouge your stories appropriately." i'm sure he doesn't even think about it, but the word takes on a totally different meaning when you pronounce it this way. does this not happen in morocco?
Friday, October 5, 2007
...my dear, i don't give a damn
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8 comments:
I love you for your geeky grammar and word obsessive ways!
I too am a grammar nut. I might not have perfect grammar, but at least I don't think it's obvious. But I married into a family that is almost polar opposite from me in terms of grammar. SO, I've had to do a lot of tongue biting in the past 10 years!! Trust me, some times my tongue is bleeding.
Go Grammar!!
My corporate boss wife is fond of saying "That is a moot point" in conference calls she takes at all hours.
However, she pronounces it "mute", and didn't take it well when I corrected her.
My personal pet peeve is when people pronounce "supposedly" as "supposably". Several people in the office do it, and they really don’t use the term "supposedly" correctly either.
SA
wow SA, that's a rough one. maybe you didn't say it right to your wife?
on the supposedly/supposably front, did you ever see that Friends episode where Joey's trying to figure that out?
I'd just like to point out, dear blog author, that you don't use any capitalization in your post.
Oh, and I already know that I don't know how to use commas. You don't have to tell me.
the lack of capitalization is pure laziness. but there will never be a spelling error here. nevver.
Have you seen this guy: http://mrshall.tumblr.com/
love mrshall. it's like a minimalist version of cute overload.
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