You Make Me [sic]
Thursday, January 31st, 2008 - 3:13pm
So the spelling of "okay" has always bothered me. Looking at "OK" just makes me uncomfortable, and I get chills when using "O.K." without having any idea what I'm abbreviating. Even Wikipedia has failed me (although it did reveal that K.Y. was once an abbreviation for the comical misspelling of "no use," casting into doubt the lubricating jelly's good name).
So what etymological anomalies have been keeping you up at night?
LobsterMobster wrote:
Ayn Rand was not a woman. He was a man that dressed as a woman in an attempt to excel beyond what was thought possible for women at that time.
This may be what you're looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay
Got any toast?
I HATE that right is direction/correct and that write is to pen something down.
I hate it because you have to read something, not wread it. So the coupling should be read and right. Like R and R. And then Write and Left, since there isn't a relationship in the first place.
It's friggin' backwards!
Letters to the Internet
Wouldn't want you to lose any sleep. The letters stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. It gained popularity with the arrival of the OK Club, which supported Martin "Old Kinderhook" Van Buren in 1840.
And now you know... the rest of the story.
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This is probably a question best left up to the likes of wordsmythe.
"What exactly is a squirrel licking beta grabbing frump digger?" ~trichy
"Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines and brudda.... I hurt people"
Sort of like how Chiggie and grouchy should totally be synonymous.
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It gets worse. I was in a vehicle when this happened.
Driver: "Turn left here?"
Navigator: "Right."
Driver turns right into a driveway and nearly causes an accident.
Me: Gaaah!
Other Passengers: Gaaah!
Driver: Doh!
After that we started giving turning directions as "Conservative" and "Liberal"
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My wife says the same thing. Except instead of Chiggie she says Stephen.
Oh.
And, instead of grouchy, she says son of a bitch. But, you know. Same thing.
Letters to the Internet
The magic word is "correct".
I usually don't mind etymology as much as linguistic fabrications/misuses. High on my list are "normalcy" and "fungible".
"And the circle has been charged through the power of unphysics, which are physics so stupid they erase normal ones from your mind." -Wields-Rulebook-Heavily at rpg.net
Minute. Why is it so damned hard for me to spell minute?
Because I'm Canadian it bothers me to no end to see colour written as "color", catalogue as "catalog", and cheque as "check".
Don't even get me started on people pronouncing portage "port age" and foyer "foi er"
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Pipe Threader Manual wrote:
http://www.oed.com/ This should clear up any other questions you have regarding word origin.
Video games don't ruin kids. If Pac-Man ruined us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, eating magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Probably because most of us don't live in areas where it's cold enough to have a portage.
"Men like sex, thus boobies! Oogaba!" - dejanzie
"If ads put your sanity to the test
come on down to Rat Boy's nest!
light up a stogie, and soon you'll see
how rock can be commercial-free!
'I'd hit it!'" - HP Lovesauce
*scratches head*
Portage: To lift craft out of the water and carry them past an obstruction such as a lock, weir or rapids.
Cold has nothing to do with it mister
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Pipe Threader Manual wrote:
wierd
Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
How is portage supposed to be pronounced?
And do you pronounce foyer "foi eh"? like some crazy Frenchman?
Fletcher wrote:
Definately
"all right" vs "alright"
Fedaykin98 wrote:
People who type /. rather than slashdot should be shot.
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But.. you just did.
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I don't imagine master craftsmen leaping away from completed projects and shouting "Done, motherf*ckers! - 1Dgaf
Definitely.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
Both are French words, so yes they should sound French
Foyer [fwaje] = Foi-yai
Portage [pɔʀta:ʒ] = Por-tahge
Sources: Grand dictionnaire terminologique and Portail Lexical
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Pipe Threader Manual wrote:
Does it make you want to /wrists?
I'm an Uncle!!! -8/20/07
I buy even though I have 2 of them. I likey the Snakey. - Scrub
ICO: General Fancypants l Steam: Grenn[GWJ] l WoW: Goquelyrslf, Grendwar l XBLA: GWJ Grenn
Fixed for consistency. If you can't come up with a new word, at least misspell the one you borrowed.
True dat.
LiquidMantis wrote:
endede.
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--
My wife liked the man part monster I made. -Pharacon
I hear ya. But unless you are in France or talking to a Frenchman, pronouncing it that way make you sound pretentious.
Kind of like people who insist on pronouncing with a Spanish accent at a Mexican restaurant (rolling their r's and what have you).
Nevermind if the place is owned by Pepsi Co and the waitress is some Chinese girl in high school.
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So if you speak the language you should butcher the pronunciation because you're of a different ethnicity? Damn straight I'm not going to order fuh-jee-tuhz.
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--
My wife liked the man part monster I made. -Pharacon
What ho! The 'smythe signal!
Do you really want me to start listing French words that have been incorporated into English and given new, English pronunciations? You Canucks can go ahead and pronounce formerly French words in the a la francais, since you have your weird little love-hate thing with French as well as with a small group of people who speak a 400 year old variant thereof. That's fine. Just don't go shoving your silly (mis)pronunciations on us.
"Turn conservative at the next corner"? Not only does that concept alarm me, but it also leads me to add that "right" is also a noun denoting a sense of entitlement.
Extra credit: Look up the Spanish translations of the direction and the entitlement.
Is there a misuse of "fungible" that I've not been accosted with, or are you merely being some sort of Latin purist?
The democratization of the web ... has installed an illusion of a digital first amendment that protects speech no matter how poorly spelled or stupid. - Elysium
Wordsmythe is my hero. - rabbit
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I have been accosted four or five times in the last year by corporate types who feel that "fungible" is a trendy synonym for "liquid".
Every time without fail, the response to my correction is the classic, "usage dictates meaning." I usually encourage them to head to bankruptcy court and start throwing the term "fungible" around.
"And the circle has been charged through the power of unphysics, which are physics so stupid they erase normal ones from your mind." -Wields-Rulebook-Heavily at rpg.net