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September 2, 2015

The Dreadful Phrases Strike Back
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 01:52 AM *

The previous iteration of this thread was getting too long, so here’s a new space to keep adding them.

Comments on The Dreadful Phrases Strike Back:
#1 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 02:30 AM:

The thing is, is that some of the most dreadful are not so much phrases as syntactical constructions.

#2 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 02:32 AM:

My wife once saw a sign in a store that had both "everyday" and "every day", and both were used correctly. She was surprised and very pleased.

#3 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 03:06 AM:

Thanks, abi! This is one of the amusements that never palls.

#4 ::: nycgeoff ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 08:01 AM:

I didn't see this one on the previous list:

He put her on a peddle stool

#5 ::: Dave H ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 08:26 AM:

A did see "Don't want someone who will put me on a pedal stool" in a dating profile once. Pretty sure she was in no danger of that from me.

#6 ::: Nancy Lebovitz ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:03 AM:

I've seen "towing the party line". "Towing the company line" appears in the previous thread, but for some reason, I think "towing the party line" is different and funnier.

#7 ::: Combat Wombat ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:06 AM:

Are we allowed poor-quality translingual puns?

<Mrs. Wombat, (pointing at two whole fresh eggs in a bowl)>Can you fry me an egg for breakfast?

<Me (pointing at the bowl with two whole fresh eggs)>But that's not un oeuf! You'll be hungry!

#8 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:47 AM:

Rando on Twitter: Jesus just waves his hand and your toast.

Me: Why would Jesus want to wave my toast?

#9 ::: James E ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 11:58 AM:

Nancy Lebovitz @6: Towing the party line is how you pull the party barge, presumably.

A piece I was editing the other week had a police officer “upholstering his gun”. I guess it makes the handgrip nice and comfy on cold nights?

#10 ::: Steve Wright ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 12:02 PM:

I am now reminded of what I think is a David Langford line, about reading the novel title The Tower of the King's Daughter and picturing a burly official hauling with some difficulty on a silken rope.

#11 ::: Christophe ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 12:06 PM:

Kitten kaboodle

A friend just discovered this isn't the phrase, and she is broken.

#12 ::: sherwood Smith ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 12:36 PM:

I've always loved butt naked, which actually makes more sense than buck naked.

#13 ::: Nancy Lebovitz ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 12:42 PM:

#9 ::: James E

Thanks for the link. The Silver Jews do good silly stuff.

#14 ::: Paula Helm Murray ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 12:45 PM:

The publishing company I used to work with like to tell their customers they would treat them with "kit gloves". And get pissed when I would be given something to review and correct it.

Then again, I had to explain that 'flushing out' in the way they were talking about it was actually 'fleshing out' something.

Supposedly people who worked with language too.

Whoops, advertising executives. Never mind.

#15 ::: nycgeoff ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 01:13 PM:

I'll try not to spam this thread, but I found this one today as well:

people are acting as though this is his first radio

#16 ::: rea ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 02:18 PM:

I have actually seen, "toad away," applied to cars.

#17 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 02:48 PM:

rea @16:
I have actually seen, "toad away," applied to cars.

I'm afraid I've been reading too much Ursula Vernon. I am now picturing a truly massive toad (yellow-green with lots of bumps) hopping up to a badly-parked car, ensnaring it with a twenty-foot sticky tongue that wraps all the way around it, pulling it into its mouth and hopping off to the impound lot.

#18 ::: Steve Wright ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 02:51 PM:

rea @16, I guess that's accurate, if you're in The Wind in the Willows.

#19 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 03:33 PM:

We have a bumper sticker that says, "Do not tailgate the Wizard - violators will be Toad", but that's deliberate.

#20 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 03:43 PM:

abi @17 I have a comic clipped out of the paper long ago. There is a placid amphibian the size of the car sitting on the back of a little hatchback. One character is saying to another, "Looks like you need one of those rear window defroggers."

That accessory has been a defrogger in our household ever since.

#21 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 03:54 PM:

abi@17: I'm afraid I've been reading too much Ursula Vernon.

Can you explain this concept, please?

#22 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 03:55 PM:

OtterB (20): It may become a 'defrogger' in my household as well. Thanks for that.

#23 ::: Steve C. ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 04:21 PM:

I once worked with someone who always said "physical year" for "fiscal year" and it exasperated me no end. He would spell it correctly in emails. He just could never say it.

#24 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 04:32 PM:

Steve C., #23: Reminds me of a former cow-orker who (1) was a sloppy speaker and (2) spelled things the way she pronounced them (e.g. she pronounced the word "skeleton" like the last name of the comedian and spelled it the same way).* This became a problem when she was writing text that would appear in the material we sent out to clients! At least the text for the actual product went by me and I could proofread it, but I shudder to think about the cover letters she sent.


* I should mention here that when I was in elementary school, I thought for years that his name was Red Skeleton. But by the time I was out of high school I knew better!

#26 ::: Lone Sloane ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 05:24 PM:

My current bugaboo is a subject being "cut and dry".

#27 ::: Greg M. ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 05:47 PM:

I just want to point out that, when this comment thread started, I had not yet finished my first year in grad school at Iowa, had no idea I was moving to L.A., and had four-and-a-half full productions of full-length plays, two web series, and 5+ drafts of a novel to come...and no idea of the mistakes I'd make therein.

Do better, past me! Get smarter! Enjoy the fun! Have more fun!

#28 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 06:14 PM:

I cannot stand 'to no end' being used for 'no end'.

#29 ::: Elliott Mason ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 07:10 PM:

dotless ı @21: Ursula Vernon (who sometimes writes as T. Kingfisher) writes amazing screwball magical realism, often comic, and likely to involve wildlife. Also she had a long-running webcomic for a while, and draws amazing things.

#30 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 07:29 PM:

Elliott Mason (29): I thought dotless ı was making a joke about about the impossibility of there ever being too much Ursula Vernon.

#31 ::: Steve Downey ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 07:36 PM:

Stirring the ambers of the fire.

#32 ::: Kevin Reid ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 08:49 PM:

James E #9: I can imagine a slightly different universe in which a gun secured in a holster is “holstered up”.

#33 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 09:42 PM:

Kevin @ 32-

Ahh--so that explains the old Mae West line, "is that a separable prefix or are you just glad to see me?"

#34 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:09 PM:

Me 8: A friend on FB responded "Because he has a rye sense of humor."

#35 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:14 PM:

Just seen: 'guilding the lily'

Well, if it needs that kind of help....

#36 ::: James E ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2015, 10:16 PM:

Kevin Reid @32: hah! Yes. It's definitely not this universe, though, because having upholstered his gun he proceeded to file several shots with it. Quick on the drawer, clearly.

#37 ::: Jordin ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 01:42 AM:

Abi @17: I think Ursula would be at least as likely to show the car being hauled away by a large flock of small birds, i.e., pigeon towed.

#38 ::: Jordin ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 01:46 AM:

And in a related vein, my brain has lately been trying to interpret "nematode" as "NEMA toad" -- an amphibian that is in compliance with electrical wiring standards.

#39 ::: Andrew Plotkin ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 01:48 AM:

This is not a true dreadful, but *I* dread it:

"But he also wanted to give himself every chance at success. He may have killed 206 people but he gained no benefit of experience from that."

(Quote is from _Zero World_ by Jason M. Hough because that's where I happened to notice it recently and remember the location.)

To my ear, the word "may" there is wrong wrong wrong. It needs to be "might". Clearly this is not the accepted English rule, because lots of people use "may" this way. I can't even articulate what rule I think it's breaking. But I am sure it's wrong. Every time I run into this, it grates.

It has the feel of a tense mismatch. "Might have" implies that the narrator did not know at that point in the story. "May have" implies that the *author* does not know *now*. Really I want to use the past tense of "may", but that doesn't even make sense, of course.

Does anybody else have this problem/

#40 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 02:19 AM:

38
I've seen library drop boxes painted as toads. There has to be something for them.

#41 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 02:21 AM:

39
You pick up that one also!
Yes, it should be 'might' - it's tense, and sometimes also mood.

#42 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 03:27 AM:

Can't resist linking to Toad Words.

It's apropos.

#43 ::: Quill ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:46 AM:

OtterB @20

Is that akin to a vindshield viper?

#44 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:47 AM:

Mary Aileen@30: Yes, thanks, that's what I meant. Elliott Mason@29, sorry I was unclear. I agree entirely with "amazing".

#45 ::: Chris ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 10:53 AM:

Incidentally, "toad" is the correct jargon for a small vehicle towed behind an RV.

#46 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 11:05 AM:

AP @39--

I share your instincts about "may" in this sentence. But I think "might" would have other problems, just as severe.

"He might have killed 206 people..." sounds as though it should be completed by, e.g. "if he had pressed the wrong button." It sounds like the consequent of a contrary-to-fact conditional.

"Might" does both of these jobs, as PJE notes. You'd like it to be a pure tense-marker in this context, but it does not stop sounding like a mood-marker. People are going to hear both, and be bothered by the mismatch with one or the other.

I would probably revise to shift the tense-marker to a different verb, e.g. "He thought to himself, "I may have killed 206 people, but I gained...."

With the tense-marking done by "thought", "may" is clearly the right verb, not "might."

#47 ::: rea ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 11:48 AM:

I've just come from the comments section of . . . another blog, with a certain overlap in commenters with this one, where a front-pager's characterization of the NFL Commissioner as a "slavering authoritarian" gets denounced in comments: "Comparing a four game suspension of Tom Brady to 'slavery' is . . . asinine." Oh, well . . .

#48 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 12:02 PM:

Andrew Plotkin (39): I think 'may' is right in that instance, although I can't articulate a rule. Take what I wrote about my very annoying upstairs neighbors last year:

"My neighbors may be annoying, but they have their uses."

That's not saying that they might (or might not) be annoying, it's conceding that they are* and contrasting that with their having other uses. 'Might' would definitely have been the wrong word to express my meaning. As I said, I can't articulate why; call it native speaker intuition.

*or were; they've since moved out

#49 ::: Theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 12:35 PM:

I'm fond of "Oldtimer's" (for "Alzheimer's").

#50 ::: Alex R. ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 12:54 PM:

abi @ 17:

What is this "too much Ursula Vernon" you speak of?

#51 ::: Alex R. ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 01:00 PM:

P J Evans @ 35

Just seen: 'guilding the lily'

To what guild does the lily belong, and is there an initiation ritual? I once saw the phase "guilting the lily," which does have some amusement value, but I don't think the poster meant it that way.

Jewish friends have also used the phrase "Hanukkah Guilt" rather than "Hanukkah Gelt," but I think that was deliberate.

#52 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 01:22 PM:

Alex @51--

I'm pretty sure that if you rips its stamen out, then you are gelding the lily.

(Which explains the old Mae West line, "is that a pistil in your pocket, or are you just gladioli?")

#53 ::: Theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 02:32 PM:

(Of course, "guilting refined gold" would be a hair less wrong, but just barely.)

#54 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 03:35 PM:

I think "may" is a special case of a subjunctive modal form in the forms you're considering. These are tricky forms.

Normally one thinks of hypotheticals as counter-factual; however, in these cases what's being proposed is a *factual* hypothetical case and I have a gut sense that in this case "may" is more correct than "might".

Compare the following constructions:
"I may have a good job, but it is still important that I manage my money carefully."
vs.
"I might have a billion dollars, but it would still be important that I manage my money carefully."

Both assert that the second clause is true *even* if the first clauses is true, but the former implies that I do have a good job (without specifically affirming it) while the second implies that I do not have a billion dollars (again, without absolutely disclaiming it.)

#55 ::: lorax ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 03:40 PM:

Clifton @54:

For me, the force of the "would be" in the second of your examples strongly suggests that the speaker does not have a billion dollars.

"I might have a good job, but it is still important that I manage my money carefully."

"I may have a good job, but it is still important that I manage my money carefully."

Neither one of those screams "wrong" to me, and they both suggest the speaker does have a good job. It may be that one of these forms is in fact formally incorrect, but it's not "wrong enough" to nag at me.

#56 ::: Andrew Plotkin ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:14 PM:

I appreciate the continued discussion on may/might! It's one of those things I picked up without being formally taught. Which means, as I noted, that I could have picked up a usage that is uncommon or wrong.

lorax's examples:

"I might have a good job, but it is still important that I manage my money carefully."

"I may have a good job, but it is still important that I manage my money carefully."

...have different implications to me. The second definitely has a good job; it's an idiom questioning causality. The first is a counterfactual, but perhaps the speaker has a good job anyway and is excluding it from the domain of discourse for the sake of argument!

(Yes, that latter is a lot of complexity to lay on one verb!)

But in third-person-past-tense it's all different again:

"He might have a good job, but it was still important that he managed his money carefully."

"He may have a good job, but it was still important that he managed his money carefully."

The last case is the one that bothers me. I agree that the problem is that one degree of freedom (may/might) is trying to do two jobs, so there's probably no solution that will work for every reader.

(Side note: in my original quoted example, the protagonist is an assassin who has his memory wiped after every job. So he *really is* unsure how many people he's killed. But I run into this grammar thing in many other books.)

#57 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:16 PM:

lorax (55): To me "I might have a good job, but..." expresses doubt about whether or not the job is actually good, whereas "I may have a good job, but..." does not. Neither is clearly right or wrong, but they mean subtly different things.

I think Clifton's explanation in #54 is correct.

#58 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:22 PM:

Andrew Plotkin (56): Thank you for clarifying your complaint. I think you are correct that your second example ("He may have a good job, but it was still important that he managed his money carefully.") is wrong. I would change the verb tense: "He may have had* a good job..."

Does that work for you?

*emphasis to show my addition

#59 ::: emgrasso ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:39 PM:

I think when the dependent clause is past tense, the contrafactual sounds wrong if it isn't also in the past, for both 'may' and 'might'.

So

...may have had ...

...might have had ...

at least for this dependent clause. (Though, oddly, I'm not sure 'might' works with a past tense dependent regardless of its own tense. Possibly a dialectal thing? Or a spoken vs. written thing.)

#60 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:47 PM:

emgrasso (59): You're right that both of those examples should be 'have had'.

'Might' works perfectly well with a past tense, though. "I might have gone to the same college as my brother, but I didn't."

#61 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 04:54 PM:

Seen today:

"When a small submarine is trapped in a deep sea cravat..."

#62 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 07:41 PM:

rea #47: Oy. I'm reminded of a flap a few years back when somebody got in trouble over "niggardly"... IIRC, they were addressing an audience of college students, too.

#63 ::: Alex R. ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 08:58 PM:

oldster @ 52

I'm pretty sure that if you rips its stamen out, then you are gelding the lily.

That's doubtless true, but one should also note that female flowers like a male with lots of stamena.

#64 ::: Singing Wren ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:01 PM:

On a yard sign promoting a local church:

"Join Us Sunday's at 10:30"

Sunday's what?

#65 ::: Alex R. ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:18 PM:

...female flowers like a male with lots of stamena.

She hates it when I fire my pistil too soon!

#66 ::: johnofjack ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:38 PM:

Re: the may/might distinction, I think it's being used in sense 8 of the Oxford English Dictionary's definition "may"):

8. Used in one of a pair of coordinate clauses with concessive force (may be or do..but = ‘although..is’ or ‘does’).

...

1903 D. McLean Stud. Apostles iv. 58 You may force fruit, but you cannot force flavour.
1984 A. Smith Mind iii. xi. 180 The eye may be the visual organ, but it is the brain that sees.

But there's a paragraph in the entry for sense 7 addressing the may/might distinction as well (I'll leave the references to senses 7a, 18b, 26 etc. because that's a lot of ellipses otherwise; if anyone really wants to know what those entries say I can post them):

From the late Middle English period senses 7a and 7b contrasted with the use of might expressing both the past subjective possibility of a situation (sense 18a; originally in indirect statements) and the present subjective possibility of a past situation (sense 18b; this function was taken over by sense 7c). Subsequently there arose a use of might in virtually indistinguishable contexts, but having the possibility of greater tentativeness (sense 26).

#67 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:54 PM:

P J Evans@35: 'guilding the lily'

There is a notion of a guild in ecology, and lilies could presumably be assigned to one or more, but I don't know enough about them to know what would make sense. (I first encountered that meaning of "guild" only a few months ago after looking up the wonderfully SF-sounding word "forb".)

#68 ::: JJ ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 09:58 PM:

I see "rational" frequently used, when what is actually meant is "rationale". Augghhh.

#69 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 10:06 PM:

And I just saw "split of the moment idea here..." I'm not even sure what that's supposed to be.

#70 ::: Chris ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 10:09 PM:

David Harmon @69: Probably meant to be "spur of the moment".

#71 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 10:50 PM:

Chris #70: Oh yeah. Thanks, that "split" just sent my associations off into the weeds.

#72 ::: chris ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 10:58 PM:

There is at least one U.S. state that has a "Statement of One in the Same" form for establishing that two names refer to the same person. I wince whenever I have to mention it because, of course, that actually is the name of the form and it's hard to avoid calling it that.

The phrase itself isn't that bad, compared to the rest of this thread and its predecessor, but making it part of the title of an official document seems like a new low.

#73 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 03, 2015, 11:02 PM:

67
In the full context, it was clear they had gilt lilies.

('Forb' I'd met. guilds of lilies - that would, as a WAG, be Asiatic, oriental, species...?)

#74 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 12:49 AM:

Somebody I read earlier today was referring to "sewing the seeds" of discord or whatever. Not sure what they were sewing them to.

#75 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 01:26 AM:

74
the guilded lilies, maybe. Or the toad lines.

#76 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 02:41 AM:

Curious that the word "forb" should arise here. It's used several times in Graydon's book A Succession of Bad Days, and it took me by surprise that there should be a short, simple word that in 47 years of ridely pretty widely I had never encountered.

(It may of course be that dotless ı came across the word in the same place I did.)

#77 ::: Nickp ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 08:55 AM:

Not a phonetic near miss, but it still says something that the writer did not intend:

"I have worms and Swedish pimples!"

(seen on a sign outside a shop that sells fishing tackle).

Dude, TMI. Just talk to your doctor about it.

#78 ::: Sandy b. ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 09:24 AM:

I ran across "He shuttered" in the wild. In a published book.

#79 ::: Steve Wright ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 12:10 PM:

David Harmon @69/71 - possibly "split second" sneaking in around the back to turn the phrase into gibberish, there?

I'm just speculating. Off the cuff of my head, sort of thing.

#80 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 12:15 PM:

Steve Wright @79 Off the cuff of my head (snort).

#81 ::: Theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 12:49 PM:

The French royal flag has gilded lilies.

#82 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 01:11 PM:

P J Evans (75): toad lines

This morning I started wondering if a witch who turns people who don't tell her the truth into amphibians could be said to toad the lyin'.

#83 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 01:53 PM:

David Goldfarb, #76:

"Ridely" is a short, simple word that, in 47 years of forbing pretty widely, I have never encountered.

#84 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 02:28 PM:

David Goldfarb@76: I came across the word "forb" while researching a small child's question, "What do sheep eat?" The first answer I found was "grass, clover, and forbs", which led to the next question.

Quick browsing suggests that daylilies are classed as forbs; so I suppose that someone has already guilded the daylily.

#85 ::: lorax ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 02:44 PM:

I know "forb", though I don't know where I first encountered it; I almost always see it in the phrase "grasses and forbs"; AIUI it's a catchall term for non-woody plants other than grasses. So "clover and forbs" seems a little like saying "apples and fruits"; the implication is that the first is most common or most important, but there really should be an "other" in there.

#86 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2015, 04:53 PM:

In any case, "gilding the lily" is a misquotation to begin with. From Shakespeare's King John:

SALISBURY:
Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

#87 ::: Renee ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2015, 01:50 PM:

Seen more than once in a traditionally published book (the first in a series, the second of which is overdue): 'mental anagram'. (Which sounds painful.)

And in a different book, traditionally published by a different company: 'crumbled' instead of 'crumpled'. Paper is crumbled, people crumble to the ground, etc. (This sounds even more painful.)

I was discussing editorial mis-steps with a friend and he told me in all seriousness that bad spelling could be due to anorexia.

Oooo-kay, then.

#88 ::: Ian C. Racey ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2015, 03:45 PM:

sherwood Smith @12

I've been told somewhere that butt naked is preferable to buck naked, as one possible etymology for the latter is that it's in reference to the supposed "primitive state" of young Native American males or male African slaves, both of whom were referred to as "bucks".

#89 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2015, 04:20 PM:

Renee #87: What's wrong with doing anagrams in your head?

#90 ::: Renee ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2015, 05:13 PM:

David Harmon #89: I like doing anagrams in my head (it's a fun game for a long drive -- Licence Plate Bingo!) But having a mental anagram done when an engram was intended ... not so much.

#91 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2015, 07:40 PM:

Renee #90: I see... indeed that sounds like it would scramble your memories.

#92 ::: Tehanu ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 04:40 AM:

Found this in, I swear to God, the official company style guide where I work:

"Calls to action are provided in standalone fashion beneath body copy followed by a carrot...
Learn More >"

Nice of them to show an example, wasn't it?

#93 ::: Jordin ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 05:58 AM:

I thought calls to action were supposed to be *preceded* by a carrot and followed by a stick. Following something with a carrot just encourages it to turn around and bite the hand that feeds it.

#94 ::: Tehanu ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 03:25 PM:

Jordin: Well, it called ME to action, but I resisted in the name of, you know, keeping my job. It's good for a laugh, anyhow, and still not quite as bad as their current let's-go-troops slogan, "Journey to Great." (And again -- I'm not making this up; who could?)

#95 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 05:22 PM:

That's not even a caret; it's a right-hand angle bracket.

#96 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 06:43 PM:

Helen S. @95--Indeed: as a caret, it lacks.

#97 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 06:56 PM:

It is too a caret, it's just sleeping. Or perhaps has had to much to drink.

#98 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 07:21 PM:

I think it's pining for the fjords.

#99 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2015, 11:01 PM:

It's not pinin', it's passed on! IT IS AN EX-CARET!

>
^^^^^^    ^: Wow, he sure seems heavier dead.

#100 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2015, 03:19 PM:

Do I caret all about this? No. I'm just posting because I want to get bracket the rest of you.

And you know what Pope Gregory said about carets: they point toward heaven, so non angli sed angeli.

#101 ::: Michael Stockelman ::: (view all by) ::: September 08, 2015, 08:44 PM:

A speaker in a training session:
'Don't just brush it under the elephant that's always in the room.'
What??

#102 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: September 09, 2015, 02:13 AM:

By the way, HelenS @100:, *snrk*

#103 ::: Ben Dorman ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2015, 09:56 AM:

When a shipyard is done fixing a boat they want to try out the systems, usually the first few days at sea. I see all too often sea trails to describe that period.

#104 ::: Cath ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2015, 02:52 PM:

Last month we moved to a different building, and from offices to open plan. Along with a floor map, there is now in circulation a directory of "cubical numbers."

#105 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2015, 03:42 PM:

Cath #104: So, the offices run 1, 8, 27, 64...? ;-)

#106 ::: john, who is incognito and definitely not at work ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2015, 03:48 PM:

Cath @ 104: Please tell me that they're numbered 1, 8, 27, 64....

#107 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2015, 09:06 PM:

Someone just answered a two-sentence, eight-word comment of mine on Facebook with "not sure what you mean by that little codex."

They meant coda, I am pretty sure. Or possibly codicil?

#108 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2015, 09:10 PM:

That depends: did you hand-write the sentences, and post a picture of them?

#109 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2015, 09:53 PM:

Tom: no, I did not. Nor did I bind them in a volume.

#110 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2015, 10:19 PM:

Someone in a fic I'm reading just got stabbed with a hyperbolic needle, which presumably hurt worse than anything has ever hurt before.

#111 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2015, 12:18 AM:

Did the bolus make them hyper?

#112 ::: Cath ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2015, 10:27 AM:

David Harmon @105, john @106

Great minds! And alas, no.

#113 ::: Cath ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2015, 11:40 AM:

Really, the homophone thing makes this too easy. Maybe they stand out more because autocorrect fixes the typos?

The latest, regarding offshoring call centre support: the owners want to "eek out a few more dollars here or there." I would be going "eek!" too, if my job were about to vanish.

#114 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2015, 02:59 PM:

Overheard on the bus home:

"...he was very nervous during the interview and kept covering his hands with his mouth."

#115 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2015, 03:14 PM:

Seen at Daily Kos, in today's midday roundup:
Hundreds of structures burned in three towns, with no end in site

#117 ::: Mycroft W ::: (view all by) ::: September 15, 2015, 12:36 PM:

Argh: context to #116: #100 HelenS.

#118 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: September 16, 2015, 01:58 AM:

@ 116: All excep Peason who hav a face like a baboon.

#119 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 16, 2015, 02:43 PM:

From a spam email about designing a website, and communicating to people:

"Did you know that 70% of website visitors leave a website because they do not find the website useful or relevant? i.e., despite reaching a company’s business presence on internet, they barely convert to customers."

Shouldn't that be "rarely" rather than "barely"? If you don't know the difference, why should I use your communication service?

#120 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 17, 2015, 04:02 PM:

I am, this week, plunged back into my regular task of grading student papers (a fact that constantly reminds me that in Iberian Spanish the word for 'duties' -- deberes -- also means 'chores'). A student wrote:

Although humans are all the same, we are very different.

#121 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: September 17, 2015, 11:39 PM:

Recently observed in email: "It's become too big for its breaches"

#122 ::: Jordin ::: (view all by) ::: September 17, 2015, 11:47 PM:

Frangano,

There's a series of TV ads running on MSNBC (for GE, I think) where they show two initially identical animated sketches of some object or scene (a windmill, a row of streetlights, the view out an airplane windshield) and then one sketch changes while the announcer explains that even though these two things look similar, the one on the right uses GE Intelligent Technology (tm, no doubt) so it works better (windmill spins, streetlights blink on and off to conserve energy, view through windshield shows plane flying).

The tag line at the end of the ad is always "Never have two things that are exactly the same been so very different."

#123 ::: Jordin ::: (view all by) ::: September 17, 2015, 11:50 PM:

And in other news, although it's not actually an error, the following unfortunately-phrased headline appeared on a cnn.com article today:

Kicked Syrian migrant offered football role in Madrid

#124 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2015, 08:52 PM:

Jordin #122: Ouch!

#125 ::: johnofjack ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2015, 04:42 PM:

(This is a sentence fragment in the original): "Plain, white baseball hat, planted vicariously on his head and tilted to the side."

#126 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2015, 04:57 PM:

Just found rereading an old Electrolite thread: "I would have saved myself a lot of vein gesturing throughout this thread..."

M. Fragonard comes to mind.

#127 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2015, 08:55 AM:

During the Singapore Grand Prix:

Engineer to Lewis Hamilton (currently fourth): "Okay, Lewis, we are going to have to look after this tyre set - try to eek it out as long as we can."

Clearly there are mice involved in this.

#128 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2015, 05:01 PM:

As I wrap up marking papers for the weekend, this sentence stuck out:

The violence and rage of the people enticed riots, killed nobles and overall began a revolution in hope of an outcome favoring the majority.

I grant that the problem here is a simple spoonerism, but the image is, shall we say, alluring.

#129 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2015, 05:58 PM:

Fragano Ledgister @128, surely you mean it's enticing....? <grin>

#130 ::: Terry Karney ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2015, 06:59 PM:

Cadbury Moose: Was that a real-time subtitling? Because I cut them a lot of slack for simple homophones.

#131 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2015, 07:00 PM:

It's kind of an incite joke.

#132 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 21, 2015, 12:41 AM:

Terry Karney@130, alas variants on the phrase "eek out" show up often enough in what passes for print on the internet, sometimes including in electronic versions of actual newspapers, that I think it has to be ascribed to ignorance rather than just accident.

(That's not counting the times that pattern matchers find it as a part of "geek out", of course, but eek, it's enough to freek me out.)

#133 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: September 21, 2015, 04:01 PM:

Terry @ #130

No, it seemed to be a text running commentary on the race.

Could be a spell chequer error rather than a braino or typo.

#134 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 23, 2015, 05:23 PM:

Just seen:
ad homonym attacks

#135 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: September 23, 2015, 09:22 PM:

PJ @134:

I've been known to refer to "argumentum ad nominem", to refer to the use of names (like "Billary", "John McShame", etc) as a way of sounding like you are making an argument without actually, you know, presenting any evidence related to the situation. Perhaps "ad homonym attacks" refers to some related fallacy?

#136 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 23, 2015, 10:14 PM:

Buddha Buck, #135: Context would probably provide a few clues. I remember using "the McCampaign" myself in 2008, but that was deliberately invoking the sense of words like "McJob" or "McMansion". I avoided "McPalin" on the grounds that it sounded like a fanfic ship descriptor!

#137 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 28, 2015, 12:26 PM:

I was enticed to something, but it was definitely an incite joke.

#138 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: September 28, 2015, 12:39 PM:

Fragano, although paper-grading is a trying time for you, I confess looking forward to the awful things you post.

#139 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 28, 2015, 03:46 PM:

P J Evans #134: A nicely self-referential error!

#140 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 29, 2015, 01:16 AM:

My apologies for agreeing with Carol Kimball@138.

And I saw somebody on the web today use the word "back-peddle". It was not a totally inaccurate word to use for the behaviour it was describing, even though it wasn't the one the writer meant.

#141 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: September 29, 2015, 07:51 PM:

From a neighborhood watch website, locally:

"We have been telling neighbors to get the U-shaped bike lock an key to better detour theives."

Maybe they should take a different route?

#142 ::: weatherglass ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 03:13 AM:

From my most recent batch of student papers, I have discovered that the Punic Wars led the Roman Empire begin its rise to empirical conquest, which makes me badly want a recording of the Empirical March. However, the Romans were a laughing-stalk on the sea.

#143 ::: James Moar ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 06:51 AM:

empirical conquest

"Can we conquer them?"
(big fight)
"Yep."

#144 ::: Steve Wright ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 09:29 AM:

I am now reminded of a very badly OCR-ed book I tried to read about Hannibal, who was (apparently) a man of great diatinotion at the time of the Pfnic Wab.

#145 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 06:58 PM:

Clearly a Pfnic Wab is one in which the loser gets pwned.

Very badly OCR-ed, indeed.

#146 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 07:05 PM:

140: Back-peddle.

I have also seen "soft-pedaling"

#147 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 07:27 PM:

Someone on Twitter just described Joe Biden as the one they wanted to see being a "loose canon" on the Sunday talk shows in 2017. Even if he started seminary now, I doubt he could rise that quickly through the ranks, even in the Episcopal Church.

#148 ::: Annie Y ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 08:22 PM:

Erik Nelson @ 146

What is wrong with that one - it is even in the dictionary? :)

#149 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2015, 08:59 PM:

146
Soft-pedaling is actually okay - think of the pedals on a piano.

#150 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: October 08, 2015, 11:22 AM:

"The restaurant was later helmed by [X] before the reigns were passed on to [Y]"

I am seeing a transfer of orb, sceptre, and maybe an archbishop or two ...

#151 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2015, 08:50 AM:

Seen this morning in two different places:
"Do to computer problems..."
"...but it was eluded to..."

#152 ::: D. Potter ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2015, 01:58 PM:

Carrie S. @151: I am so very tempted to complete those sentences:

"...as they would do unto you." and
"...the consternation of the police at the roadblock."

(I need to practice temptation-resistance. Tae kwon don't.)

#153 ::: Kevin Marks ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2015, 04:55 PM:

If bad bilingual puns are allowed…
They never understand my accent at that French Vietnamese restaurant. I asked for beef soup and they gave me an armchair.

(Phở tái vs fauteuil)

#154 ::: Sandy B. ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2015, 05:05 PM:

I almost struck myself down with a dreadful phrase just now. "Vested" in "vested interest", is as in "fully vested", not as in card tricks [and I'm not actually sure vesting a card has to do with card tricks... slow day indeed.]

#155 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 28, 2015, 07:28 PM:

Seen in the wild: Our email had an outage:

Due to the service laps, we many need to...
Luckily we didn't have to go around and around to get it restored.

#156 ::: Anne Sheller ::: (view all by) ::: October 28, 2015, 07:38 PM:

It all goes around.....

#157 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: October 28, 2015, 09:42 PM:

I just finished Last First Snow and felt compelled to re-read Two Serpents Rise. Early on, I ran across this one, which I didn't remember encountering before:

Sixty years after Dresediel Lex cast off the gods' yolk, its masters still demanded blood.
(Apologies to our hosts if this is tactless.)
#158 ::: Craft (Alchemy) ::: (view all by) ::: October 29, 2015, 06:31 AM:

Kevin Marks @153, on bad bilingual puns - this from my sister, recently:

"I asked my German friend what he'd done at the weekend and he said he'd been rearranging the furniture - apparently he's put the table in the bath - bad-um-tisch!"

#159 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: October 29, 2015, 01:19 PM:

Wow, a pun that's it's own rimshot, that's impressive!

#160 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 30, 2015, 12:16 PM:

Reported seen in the wild: "No margarine for error."

I guess if they just barely squeezed by...

#161 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: October 31, 2015, 02:44 AM:

Headline at SFGate:
Man saves dog from mountain lion in his underwear

(There were at least two comments with the response you would expect.)

#162 ::: Chris ::: (view all by) ::: November 02, 2015, 01:28 PM:

I just saw a flier for a "Fall Craft Bizarre".

#163 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: November 02, 2015, 02:02 PM:

Chris (162): How bazaar.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has a "Bizarre Bazaar" every October.

#164 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: November 10, 2015, 11:29 AM:

“We got out of the shoot extremely strong; very strong in the first few days.” — Tim Cook interview in The Telegraph.

#165 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: November 10, 2015, 11:46 AM:

TomB (164): I take it that the interview is not about shooting a movie? 'The shoot' would make sense in that context. (It took me a couple of tries to read it differently, and thus to figure out what was wrong with the sentence).

#166 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: November 12, 2015, 09:28 PM:

Just seen: "They don't have a lead singer per say."

I should say not!

#167 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2015, 09:41 AM:

Just seen: "They way as little as 150 grams."

#168 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: November 18, 2015, 02:45 PM:

One for Fragano's collection: 'it is a natural part of human nature to be weary of what is new'.

#169 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: November 29, 2015, 09:59 PM:

Colleague when told about a problem: "I'll have to put my thinking tap on."

Which, makes good sense for initiating the flow of solutions.

#170 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2016, 12:20 AM:

Not quite the usual, but an example of usage that clearly indicates the speaker didn't understand: heard a newsreader pronounce 'biopic' to rhyme with "my topic." BIO(graphical )PIC(ture), fool.

#171 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2016, 12:23 AM:

The more usual kind: an article about a SECOND armed militia showing up in Oregon, claiming they wanted to "diffuse the situation."

The situation is potentially explosive, not hyperconcentrated.

Fortunately, even the snackless white-ring terrorists knew the presence of an armed perimeter would not be helpful.

#172 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: January 11, 2016, 06:52 PM:

From an article on a new show: "The two actors are attached to toppling the pilot and series, if it scores a full pickup."

Why Autocorrect hasn't yet been indicted in the Hague for Crimes Against Humanity I cannot imagine.

#173 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 11, 2016, 09:27 PM:

Xopher (172): I can't figure out what that's trying to say. Any clues?

#174 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: January 11, 2016, 11:21 PM:

They meant "topping" as in "getting top billing." The two lead actors are on board for the pilot, and if it's picked up for a full season, they're in for that, too.

#175 ::: dana ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2016, 01:29 AM:

Came across a good one today: an "honor role student."

#176 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2016, 01:11 PM:

Thanks, Xopher (174). I could tell that 'toppling' was the problem, but I wasn't familiar with that use of 'topping' so I couldn't fill in the blank.

#177 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2016, 11:23 PM:

Just saw a new one (to me) on a restaurant's website: "Prefix 5 Course Menu"

It took a while for it to dawn on me that they meant "prix fixé", and then I burst out laughing.

#178 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: January 23, 2016, 10:18 PM:

From a Marin newspaper website:
"Sausalito anchor-out Peter Romansky had his own explanation for the theater’s troubles.
“I’ve been kicked out of the theater and banned,” Romansky said. “I’ve put a curse on the theater and will not lift that curse until I get an apology.”"

anchor-out = anchorite?

#179 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 23, 2016, 11:15 PM:

178
As he's from Sausalito, he might live on a boat.

I saw one this week: 'rain in' someone or something.

#180 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: January 23, 2016, 11:33 PM:

A kid describing himself as a secret "sex attic".

#181 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: January 23, 2016, 11:50 PM:

Oh, that could be - I forgot Sausalito has this whole houseboat community. It may be a local or a nautical term.

#182 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2016, 01:04 AM:

The Guardian said the authorities were "extolling" the public to stay off the roads.

"Praise to you, o Great Public! ...please stay off the roads."

#183 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2016, 02:10 AM:

I would guess that "anchor-out" refers to someone living on a boat that is anchored out away from the shore, as opposed to being tied up to a dock in a marina, or possibly tied to a permanent mooring buoy in a harbor. Living on a boat is sometimes cheaper than living on land, but tying up to a dock in a marina pretty much always costs money, and moorings in many harbors cost money. In most places anchoring your boat is free, though some places have regulations limiting where or for how long you can anchor.

#184 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2016, 08:05 PM:

Broken parallelism has become so common that it probably doesn't qualify as a Dreadful Phrase any more, but I still am irritated by, e.g., "When he awoke from his dream he was sated, dizzy, and red sauce stained his shirt." (As I was taught ~50 years ago, either the first comma should be replaced by " and" or the entire sentence should be rebuilt.) Has this become so common that people's minds just fix it while processing?

wrt "anchor-out": I can see that applying to someone who can't afford a slip (e.g., F-18) and has to anchor out in the water instead. Can anyone from that area suggest whether such a person has a tiny boat to get to the shore and back or pays for a dock slot as semi-suburban landlubbers such as myself pay for parking when we go into the city?

#185 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 03:09 PM:

CHip:
1) Syllepsis! Also known as zeugma! When it's used intentionally for humorous effect, it can be wonderful, as in Flanders and Swann's 'Have Some Madeira, M'Dear' - "She lifted the glass, her courage, her eyes, and his hopes." When unintentional, it can still be pretty funny but less wonderful.

I haven't seen enough of it to think it's become that much more common, though bad writing abounds.

#186 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 04:47 PM:

Clifton, #185: My favorite bit is, "When he said, 'What in Heaven?', she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door!"

#187 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 07:45 PM:

A few weeks ago, I used 'cohering' as the verb form of 'coherent'. My mother didn't even blink.

#188 ::: Sandy B. ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 08:28 PM:

I would use "cohere" in a physics context without blinking.

#189 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 09:02 PM:

Mary Aileen #187: I think that's entirely correct.

#190 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 09:27 PM:

David Harmon (189): "I wasn't cohering very well" to mean "I wasn't very coherent"? It doesn't sound correct to me.

#191 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2016, 11:18 PM:

Mary Aileen, #190: Maybe not strictly correct, but I would accept it as a fannish back-formation without hesitation.

#192 ::: xeger ::: (view all by) ::: January 26, 2016, 01:19 AM:

Mary Aileen @ 190 ...
David Harmon (189): "I wasn't cohering very well" to mean "I wasn't very coherent"? It doesn't sound correct to me.

... which seems entirely apropos to me ;D

#193 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: January 26, 2016, 03:14 AM:

Mary Aileen #190: Hmm. ISTM The main problem with "I wasn't cohering very well" would be a lack of context, as to in what manner you failed to cohere. However, presumably you weren't spontanously disassembling, or badly attempting to align your wavelengths, so the conversational context does tend to imply itself. ;-)

(Note to self: No matter how cold it was outside, don't order a pot of tea with dinner. That leads to insomnia and 3AM postings.)

#194 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: January 26, 2016, 08:37 AM:

We no longer use coherers in our wireless apparatus, but a long time ago they were, as the kids say these days, A Thing.

#195 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 26, 2016, 08:42 AM:

I am corrected.

Lee (191), "fannish backformation" is about right. As I said, my mother didn't even blink at it.

#196 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 26, 2016, 08:46 AM:

Oh, and xeger (192) has the right of it: I was still no more than 3/4 awake when I came up with that.

#197 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: January 27, 2016, 10:14 PM:

A license plate rather than a phrase, but today I saw "ROUT 66". The owner had clearly had the plate for a long time, too.

#198 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: January 27, 2016, 10:39 PM:

Clifton: NOT syllepsis, and certainly not zeugma as I learned it (and Wikipedia defines it). These have a parallel structure (as shown in other comments), with sometimes a small mismatch ("he works his work, I mine"), so that phrases could be exchanged with minor disagreement in non-zeugma syllepses; compare the result to "he was red sauce stained his shirt and dizzy".

#199 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2016, 01:58 AM:

Found while down an Internet rabbithole: '... but maybe that’s just pegging the question here.'

#200 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2016, 09:23 AM:

Just seen:

"Beauty is truly in the high of the beholder."

No, not meant humorously or punnishly or ironically. *Sigh*

#201 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2016, 11:03 PM:

"waived goodbye"

no, that's okay, you don't have to bid me farewell

#202 ::: GlendaP ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2016, 02:17 PM:

Just seen on twitter:

"Your knockers are overly twisted"

#203 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2016, 02:37 PM:

GlendaP, ouch.

#204 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2016, 02:55 PM:

GlendP, #202: Sadly, I can mentally reconstruct the format of the discussion in which that occurred, and make several guesses about the possible topic.

#205 ::: GlendaP ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2016, 03:34 PM:

Lee #204: The topic was innocuous enough, but yes, the format of the discussion was all too familiar.

#206 ::: Cath ::: (view all by) ::: January 31, 2016, 12:03 PM:

Sighted in a discussion on feminism: if you don't oppress women it will lead them "to pants wearing and the wonton urge to vote."

#207 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: January 31, 2016, 06:58 PM:

Someone will be in the soup over that one.

#208 ::: Cath ::: (view all by) ::: January 31, 2016, 07:45 PM:

Cadbury Moose @207

The jokes just write themselves, don't they? Myself, I look forward to the day when dumpling emancipation is no longer controversial.

#209 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: February 03, 2016, 02:32 PM:

"[Her condition] was then exasperated by..."

#210 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: February 03, 2016, 05:23 PM:

Carrie S. (209): I don't know, I'm frequently in a condition of being exasperated by things. ;)

#211 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: February 03, 2016, 08:47 PM:

Heard a newsreader say that a killer was also wanted for the "disembodiment" of a young woman.

#212 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2016, 12:49 AM:

[Some effort] has been for not.

#213 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2016, 02:40 AM:

Lin, #212: Hee! I saw that one too.

#214 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2016, 03:10 AM:

So did I. (I was wondering whether the Lee I've been seeing there was you.)

#215 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2016, 12:01 PM:

212-214: *snicker*

#216 ::: Tatterbots ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2016, 04:54 PM:

"She let him too it." (left him to it)

Seen in an otherwise high quality fanfic, so I have to attribute it to authorial lack of sleep or the like.

#217 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: February 10, 2016, 12:47 PM:

from my hippy dipping days

#218 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: February 11, 2016, 12:01 PM:

"[He] lived in one of the refugee buildings – thrown up after the rest of Brooklyn was raised to the ground by the War."

:twitches:

#219 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: February 12, 2016, 06:35 PM:

Seen quoted by someone elseNet, in a similarly-themed sub-thread:

"You should never pleasurize someone else’s work."

#220 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: February 12, 2016, 07:14 PM:

Lee (219): That sounds like it means that the writer doesn't approve of slash.

#221 ::: Sandy B. ::: (view all by) ::: February 13, 2016, 05:48 PM:

Just seen onweb: "flee market".

I mean, I don't like them, but I'm not that melodramatic. Or fast.

#222 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: February 14, 2016, 11:25 PM:

The other day, one of the usual crowd was foaming on about "right ring femisnt."

Even what they MEANT doesn't make sense.

#223 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: February 15, 2016, 12:56 PM:

Xopher #222: I've got a left ring and a right ring. One of those might be involved.

#224 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: February 15, 2016, 07:43 PM:

I pointed out that before SSM was legal (it still gives me a little thrill to type that) some gay couples used to wear wedding rings on the right hand as a protest. Someone else pointed out that that's wayyy too logical.

#225 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: February 21, 2016, 03:57 AM:

Reason given for editing a forum post: 'forgot to inbed link'.

#226 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: February 21, 2016, 08:53 AM:

I'm not sure it counts, because the usage is correct and quite clear in context, but it amuses me so I thought I'd share.

I was completing a form about respite care for my daughter with special needs. In a series of questions about medical and technological needs (do they have any assistive technology devices, do they use a CPAP when they sleep...) it asked "Does this person use oxygen?"

Well, yes, but not in the way the question was intended.

#227 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: February 21, 2016, 08:53 PM:

#218 throwing up a building gives m an image of a great beast vomiting bricks

#228 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: February 22, 2016, 12:46 PM:

Erik, one of my friends in high school German class had, as his catchphrase, 'Iß den Dom!'—which is ungrammatical German for "Eat the cathedral!" as a command.

He drew many a picture of people devouring cathedrals. One of them was a multi-panel cartoon, and in the penultimate panel the Domesser, his head distorted into the shape of the Kölner Dom, announces that he's feeling ill. The last panel shows him bent over a pile of bricks and rubble.

When our summer exchange group visited Köln, we posed with mouths open and teeth bared near the buttresses.

My gods. That was FORTY years ago this summer. I am old.

#229 ::: cajunfj40 ::: (view all by) ::: February 24, 2016, 12:11 PM:

Found today:

"ALL MATERIALS ARE TO BE PACKAGED IN A MANOR THAT WILL PREVENT OUTSIDE CONTAMINATION FROM COMING IN CONTACT WITH THE MATERIAL, AND PREVENT SURFACE SCRATCHING DURING SHIPMENT OF THE PRODUCT."

Now picturing statuesque and stately homes being shipped around the world, with product safely ensconced within in a comfy chair. The look is slightly marred by every piece of furniture - and every other object within the house - being covered in a high-tech version of those clear vinyl covers you see on couches in the living room of many a house. The fire is, unfortunately, behind a high-tech version of one of those glass fronts. The drink on the sideboard is in a complicated vessel that would look more at home in a zero-gravity space station. Said homes have a cleanroom ventilation system installed, maintaining positive pressure within at all times. Doors and windows are locked, of course, and the very high-tech alarm system is always armed. The butler finds his dignity somewhat affronted by having to wear a cleanroom "bunny suit" as they check on the product and see to its needs throughout the journey. At least they can be satisfied that their white gloves always come away perfectly clean upon touching any surface in this immaculate house.

#230 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 02, 2016, 09:39 AM:

From an article in the Wall Street Journal:

"Liberals may have been fond of claiming that Republicans were all closet bigots and that tax cuts were a form of racial prejudice, but the accusation rang hollow because the evidence for it was so tendentious."

The word he was looking for was "tenuous".

#231 ::: Sandy B. ::: (view all by) ::: March 02, 2016, 10:22 AM:

From this article on lead poisoning, "infant morality".

Five minutes earlier I saw "sacrificing our children on the alter", but that had the dubious excuse of being an op-ed .

#232 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 08, 2016, 12:42 PM:

Guy on radio: [tells an illustrative story] That's one antidote, but we have studies and statistics that show the same thing.

May have been a momentary lapse. He was otherwise quite cogent.

#233 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: March 08, 2016, 01:39 PM:

Gah.

You "hone" an edge. You "home in on" a target.

If you "hone in on" an answer, you make my teeth hurt.

#234 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: March 08, 2016, 10:17 PM:

Seen in the wild today: "he cagouled her until she gave in".

Lightweight raincoats are very persuasive.

#235 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 09, 2016, 11:51 PM:

On a Maintenance door card: "I would like to set a time to inseminate. Please call me at [number]."

The person who showed it to me opined that it was the opening of a porn scenario, but I think the person just meant "exterminate."

#236 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 09, 2016, 11:52 PM:

Come to think of it, the porn version of the Daleks would be saying "INSEMINATE! INSEMINATE!"

Consensually, of course.

#237 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: March 10, 2016, 12:56 PM:

In #233 Jacque doesn't mention the text that was bugging her, but perhaps it was page 19 of the Feb. 29-March 13 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology. In an article about a counter-drone hijacking experiment during the Rose Bowl game, Graham Warwick quotes Randy Villahermosa of the Aerospace Corporation:

"There were 100,000 people, 100,000 cellphones, Wi-Fi, satellite and terrestrial communications active during game time [...] We were still able to hone in, detect the drone, and exert control."

#238 ::: Ian C. Racey ::: (view all by) ::: March 11, 2016, 04:26 PM:

From an answer on Quora: "... you spend a lot of time cowtailing to everyone around you--your supervisors as well as your client, your tenants, and the general public."

#239 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: March 11, 2016, 11:43 PM:

Found in a help forum about adding watermarks to images on a website, whether to add to image or:

...adding watermark "in the fly".

#240 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 01:59 AM:

>> ... you spend a lot of time cowtailing to everyone around you ...

This one took me a few seconds, because in east Africa (and probably other places) there is such a thing as a fly whisk made of the hair of a cow or bull's tail, so I imagined cowtailing as a metaphor for some helpful act in service of keeping pests away from one's superiors and senior colleagues.

(I brought a bull tail whisk back from my trip, but found that I strongly prefer the western fly swatter.)

#241 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 08:58 AM:

'Cow tailing' actually makes a certain amount of sense. Or at least I can see how they got to it. What we have here is someone who has heard the phrase 'kowtowing to' but is not familiar with the word itself and has never seen it spelled. So they turned it into something familiar.

#242 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 12:14 PM:

My partner and I call that an Inverse Gazebo Error. A regular Gazebo Error is when you don't know how to pronounce a word because you've only seen it written.

#243 ::: Ian C. Racey ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 12:35 PM:

I remember having that very thing happen when I first encountered the word "kowtow"; for a while I assumed it was pronounced "co-toe".

#244 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 01:06 PM:

I just heard someone say 'pneumonic device' (talking about how to remember thing).

#245 ::: Jim Parish ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 06:47 PM:

#241 Mary Ailenn: It's a common enough phenomenon that linguists have coined a name for it: "eggcorn". ("Eggcorn" for "acorn" is the prototypical example.) Take a look at The Eggcorn Database for more examples. (I'm rather proud of having brought the phrase "beyond approach" to the attention of the compilers of the database.)

#246 ::: Jim Parish ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 06:48 PM:

Aargh. I was being so careful to get the "A" in "Aileen", and wound up with a double-"n". Sorry about that!

#247 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2016, 08:22 PM:

Jim Parish (246): Don't worry about it. You got both parts of my name in there, that's the important thing.

#248 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: March 13, 2016, 03:31 AM:

I worked at a place where the design documents and code comments were required to define all the mnemonics they contained. In practice it was almost always misspelled as 'pneumonics'. It was scary. All it took was one person to misspell it and everyone else would copy it. It was like a plague.

#249 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: March 13, 2016, 08:00 AM:

TomB #248: <low-hanging-fruit> The pneumonic plague? </low-hanging-fruit>

#250 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: March 13, 2016, 08:48 PM:

Lee@242 - I am so adopting 'Gazebo Error'. Much more concise than 'I-often-see-it-written-I-never-hear-it-spoken Error'. And when one spends much of one's time among geeks, one has a use for a concise way to say that!

#251 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: March 13, 2016, 10:19 PM:

Lee #242, SunflowerP #250: Hmm. "Gazebo Error" makes me think of a very different sort of error:

Early in the history of D&D, one of the sample adventures¹ started in a house with a gazebo behind it. A significant number of 10 and 12-year old players² were told by their similarly-aged DMs "behind the building, you see a gazebo", assumed it was some kind of monster, and responded with "I attack the gazebo!", leaving the DM snickering and/or frantically trying to figure out what AC and hit points a gazebo had.

¹ I forget whether it was in the Basic set or the first AD&D adventure booklet.

² Including me, IIRC. ;-)

#252 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: March 13, 2016, 11:08 PM:

One of those was written up as Eric and the Dread Gazebo.

#253 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 01:14 AM:

#251/252: Yes, that's where it came from. It seems pretty obvious that the player in question had never heard anyone say "gazebo" and thought it was pronounced GAZE-bo, and that's why the repeated explanations of "It's a gazebo!" weren't penetrating.

#254 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 01:31 AM:

Lee #253: I simply didn't know what a gazebo was, because I was 10 years old, and lived in a levittown where nobody had space for gazebos. (My DM did pronounce it properly.)

#255 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 03:54 AM:

Your gazebo is no match for my friend's pergola.

#256 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 12:44 PM:

I coined the term "to be /maizld/" (which is spelled 'misled') for the Gazebo Effect. :) This is because I saw it written much more than I heard it spoken, and was, well, misled as to the pronunciation. (I am not the only person I've met who invented this specific term for it, either.)

#257 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 01:30 PM:

The Boyfriend uses /'maizld/ to describe malicious misinformation. /mis'led/ can be by accident or through ignorance.

#258 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: March 14, 2016, 03:40 PM:

When I was a kid, Watergate was in the news a lot. It was quite a while before I discovered that the word "indict" that I saw in the newspaper, and the word that I heard pronounced as "indite" on the news, which had similar meanings, were actually the same word.

#259 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: March 15, 2016, 02:27 PM:

Huh. Here's a variant of the Grocer's apostrophe I haven't encountered before:

We carry GAGS' & GIFTS'
#260 ::: Tamlyn ::: (view all by) ::: March 15, 2016, 06:42 PM:

My embarrassing couldn't pronounce word was archaeology. I mangled it horribly when standing in front of a university professor saying I wanted to study it. No excuse of being a child there :s

I mispronounce far too many words. My sister is the only one who corrects me, and as she's on the other side of the country, I don't get the corrections enough to have an effect.

#261 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: March 15, 2016, 06:51 PM:

Seen in the wild: "if you ever lose site of humanity, go watch a marathon".

#262 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: March 15, 2016, 07:23 PM:

(Or is that the Grocers' apostrophe?)

#263 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: March 15, 2016, 10:53 PM:

My always-mispronounced word (and it drives my husband batty) is "mosaic". I consistently say "mo-ZY-ic", rather than "mo-ZAY-ic". I have no idea why, and I can't seem to train myself out of it. All I end up doing is stuttering on the word...

#264 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: March 18, 2016, 10:27 AM:

Seen in an article on political rallies

yelling and causing a raucous 

#265 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: March 23, 2016, 05:40 PM:

From the National Weather Service:

MANY ROADS ARE CLOSURED ACROSS NORTHEAST COLORADO.

I wish I could believe this was written by a robot.

#266 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 05:07 PM:

Found on a menu, probably found on many menus these days

Chinese Chicken Chop Salad

It stands out because the rest of the menu is done very well. Complete sentences and everything.

#267 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 05:10 PM:

"Chop salad" is a common term for a chopped salad -- Google it and you'll find many examples. It may be a dreadful phrase in some ways, but it's a very well known usage.

#268 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 05:27 PM:

Making the rounds on the Canadian internet at the moment, a woman in Alberta wants to launch a "kudatah" against the provincial NDP government.

#269 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 05:33 PM:

From the same place as the Chop Salad comes the online menu choices of

Choose up to 1 option.


I guess 0 is a choice.

#270 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 05:39 PM:

Tom @267
It still makes me cringe. And it stood out in an otherwise well done print menu.

#271 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 07:34 PM:

Talking about menu abominations always makes me think of "with au jus sauce", which shows up in places upscale enough that they really ought to know better.

#272 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2016, 09:27 PM:

271
or even just 'with au jus'. Aaarrrggghhh!

#273 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 12:01 AM:

I once saw, "with au jus, in a sauce of its own natural juices."

#274 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 04:58 AM:

Department of redundancy department on line one for you....

#275 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 07:28 AM:

Lin Daniel #269: Well yes, you could skip the free side dish, or some other category. If that's showing for entree options, you might have a problem, depending how the system is setup.

#276 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 06:08 PM:

Saw another restaurant offering a "pre-fix" Easter dinner. It was on the way home from lunch, so I went home and had a suffix.

#277 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 06:47 PM:

On restaurant menus, the somewhat bizarre Chinese translations can be entertaining ("Fresh Cobster") or a trap for the unwary ("Chicken in black bean sauce. Not very hot." - they'd omitted the 'e'on the end of 'Note', to our considerable surprise).

www.engrish.com usually has some "interesting" translations, like the fire extinguisher, or the worrying No Smoking sign.

Eek!

#278 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2016, 09:31 PM:

Just got a notcie from a Meetup group that the group is having a Meetup at the "Cheery blossom kite festival."

#279 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2016, 06:33 AM:

I've just read that rabbits of the same gender will fight "for mating rites and nesting sites."

#280 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2016, 09:18 AM:

dcb (279): Do rabbit mating rites involve giving each other brightly colored eggs?

#281 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2016, 05:44 PM:

Mary Aileen @280: Not so I've noticed... :-)

#282 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2016, 08:16 PM:

Someone I know just called someone else a "died in the wool conservative" on Facebook.

I suppose if you're going to die, there are worse places than in the wool.

#283 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2016, 03:04 PM:

Cadbury Moose@277: Victor Mair's posts on Language Log often try to tease apart particularly odd translations into English, like "spicy fried broccoli is better to die" on a menu, or "China Transfinite Governance". Sometimes there's a really obvious explanation; other times it takes some exploration, conjecture, and a trip through a bad dictionary. The "lost in translation" tag on the blog makes for fun browsing.

#284 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2016, 03:27 PM:

"maniacle laughter"

My first glance skipped over the I and I was left wondering why manacles would laugh.

#285 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2016, 03:28 PM:

Trying to shake loose a server error.

#286 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2016, 10:03 AM:

Seen in a comment section: "someone ... cutting me up in traffic."

#287 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2016, 07:02 PM:

In an otherwise wonderful article about a wonderful institution, an online magazine said the institution "strives to affect positive change." In the HEADLINE.

#288 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2016, 07:39 PM:

"Civil rights icon paying #amish to another civil rights icon"

If you've ever seen the picture of a dog getting sprayed with a hose with the caption "WHAARGARBL" on it? That is my face right now.

#289 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2016, 08:08 PM:

From Wikipedia:

Elephants loom large in the life of people of the Lugenda River Valley.

#290 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2016, 08:55 PM:

Someone on Twitter today said she'd be "hard broken" if her partner (did something untrusting).

#291 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2016, 08:43 PM:

Bruce H. @289: isn't that just the intransitive verb "to loom", meaning to appear large, often over or above something (e.g. storm clouds or mountains are often described as "looming" over the scenery)? Or is it a mis-spelling of some other phrase that I'm overlooking?

#292 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2016, 10:14 PM:

Two things struck me about this:
1. Of course elephants loom large. That's what elephants do. It's not clear to me what this choice of words adds to the article. (See Orwell on cliches.)
2. It sounds like it was written by a 10 year old who had just learned about alliteration.

#293 ::: Rymenhild ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2016, 02:56 PM:

I just saw a job listing for a position at the Day School of the Scared Heart.

#294 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: April 12, 2016, 11:50 AM:

From Talking Points Memo today:

"We are in all new unchartered grounds," said Holland Redfield, a delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands who has attended the convention as a delegate multiple times beginning in the 1980s.

Unchartered grounds, indeed.

#295 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: April 15, 2016, 06:45 PM:

From a smartphone review:

The power button has a seriously tactical design engraved into it.
I think they meant "tactile".

#296 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 15, 2016, 11:19 PM:

It would depend on the context of the review; in some circles, "tactical" has come to mean something like "martial" (but more manly). Things like clothing, footwear, backpacks, shoulder bags, flashlights, even food can all now be marketed as "tactical", meaning they're available in one or more militaristic shades or camouflage patterns, and may have the right patterns of straps and buckles, or be implied to be more durable (without necessarily living up to that claim, of course).

I could imagine a deeply knurled black button, that resembled something on a firearm, being described as "tactical" by someone engaging in that sort of marketing.

#297 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2016, 10:57 AM:

I have a computer case that was marketed as "tactical" and "stealth". This despite having pretty light-up LEDs inside it.

#298 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2016, 04:28 PM:

That's funny. In the context of the review, the engraving made it easier to distinguish the power button by touch, so I think "tactile" would make the most sense. But it could be they really meant "tactical". It would be easy for me to miss that because I am really not into "tactical" styling.

#299 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2016, 11:07 PM:

From a free Kindle book (worth every penny)

Salesmen hocking mattresses (I wonder if the boss knows about that)

He decided to try a new tact

In the end it was all for not

#300 ::: thomas ::: (view all by) ::: April 17, 2016, 03:28 AM:

When I found out it was in Mozambique, I hoped the Lugenda River would be close to the other famous source of alliteration, the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees

Sadly, they're at opposite ends of the country. I suppose the elephant-looming is still probably about the same size.

#301 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2016, 05:59 PM:

From a web page I happened to have stumbled across: "most of the grudge work can be done automatically using a small utility I've created". While I have done some projects out of spite, I don't think that's what they meant.

#302 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2016, 06:35 PM:

Not necessarily a Dreadful Phrase, but can anyone tell me why the page linked to about medieval illuminated manuscripts over in the open thread (this one) says "The fact that these texts were bound with animal skins makes them pretty metal" as one of the two sentences in its description? Do you think they meant "meta" rather than "metal"? The metal portion of the binding doesn't quite fit another interpretation, at least in my head....

#303 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2016, 07:34 PM:

I feel pretty sure that "metal" is meant. I'm a bit fuzzy on just what "metal" means, but it's something along the lines of "good/cool in a way that is in accordance with the behavior of heavy metal musicians". (Which definition is itself not in the least metal.)

Compare The Most Metal Deaths in Middle-Earth, Ranked.

#304 ::: thomas ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2016, 09:51 PM:

I would have said metal meant 'in accordance with the aesthetics of heavy-metal music' rather than related to the behaviour of the musicians.

Back in the middle ages it wouldn't have been either meta or metal to bind books made of animal guts with animal skins. If you did it today you could make a case for either. Though not both; I think they're mutually exclusive.

#305 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2016, 10:43 PM:

Okay, reasonable correction. I'd say, of course, that there's a certain natural overlap between the aesthetics of the music and the behavior of the musicians.

#306 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: April 20, 2016, 12:31 AM:

You could make a book cover that was both meta and metal if you then added a dust-jacket with spikes on it, I think.

#307 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: April 20, 2016, 05:10 PM:

From the History Things web site: "Scroll through the gallery and bare witness to some of history’s greatest images."

So is this like Heinlein's Fair Witnesses but without the white robe?

Additional annoyance, the post promises 30 great images, but the navigation bar shows 52 pages.

#308 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: April 20, 2016, 05:15 PM:

Hey, a little over half the images are great ones -- that's a pretty good average!

#309 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: April 20, 2016, 07:41 PM:

Only if you weight the images equally; experience of online galleries of "great images" suggests to me that the remaining 22 images will be ads, and therefore lack greatness disproportionately to their mere number.

#310 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2016, 01:59 AM:

From an article in the online Smithsonian Magazine (from whom I expect better): '... Oculus headsets that jettison us through time and space....'

#311 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 30, 2016, 04:58 PM:

Spotted in the wild: someone said that the right wing assumes that their "freedom" includes the right to "impose their fews on others."

#312 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 08, 2016, 04:43 PM:

And now, at quite a different location elseweb, someone else said that he'd been told something "a view times."

I'll be back in a bit. I just have to smash this desk to splinters with my head.

#313 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: May 08, 2016, 04:46 PM:

Damn you, autocorrect? V and F are right next to each other and the thing might have decided he forgot the I.

#314 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 08, 2016, 09:39 PM:

Mayyyybe, but the words are also very similar in sound. Still, one can hope.

#315 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: May 08, 2016, 10:24 PM:

Read a story today in which someone ordered lomaine noodles for lunch.

#316 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 09, 2016, 08:26 PM:

With a side salad of ro mein lettuce.

#317 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: May 10, 2016, 11:12 PM:

Speak my peace

My sorted past

A riff in the relationship

Maybe I should stop downloading free books for my Kindle

#318 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: May 17, 2016, 03:44 PM:

Went past an advertisement today for an apartment which has a photon.

#319 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: May 17, 2016, 04:11 PM:

Em@318

One would hope it has plenty of photons.

Otherwise the interior would be very difficult to see...

#320 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: May 17, 2016, 08:47 PM:

I'm guessing it bounces around a lot. Mirrors everywhere.

#321 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: May 17, 2016, 09:40 PM:

Must be for light sleepers...

#322 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2016, 10:27 AM:

From an essay in the online Washington Post: "I would intend to write after tucking [the children] in at night; instead I would end up tidying the living room while my husband clambered for time with me."

Pretty sure her husband was clamoring, not clambering.

#323 ::: cajunfj40 ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2016, 08:53 AM:

In the inbox today (regrettably not caught by the spam filter) the title of an e-mail was "Gaooool!!". Thought by me: "Why are they seeming really excited about jail?" followed by looking over to the actual e-mail in the preview pane and seeing it was about European style football, and the iconic yell of the commentators when a goal is scored.

Hmm. Now I'm thinking about commentators for fast-paced courtroom events...

#324 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2016, 09:09 AM:

cajunfj40 @323 -- The best example of this recently (or perhaps, just of a partisan commentator completely losing it over a goal) was from the recent Iceland match. (thinking about it, it's probably what you got)

Iceland, a small nation, without much in the way of footballers managed to finish second in their group with a goal in the last 30 seconds of their match to win, when they'd been on their heels defending for the last half hour, and a mistake doing that would have sent them home. I'm not a major soccer fan, but it was the soccer equivalent of a mic drop.

(And by small, something over 2% of the country was _in_ the stadium in France watching the game. )

#325 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2016, 12:31 PM:

Reading an interview with the producer of an upcoming TV series; the interviewer invites him to "wet the appetite" of the audience.

#326 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: June 24, 2016, 04:11 PM:

In the comments of an article about the latest episode of Game of Thrones:

why don’t the Umber’s rule all of Westeros? They seem to be about the only people in the land with the combination of shields, armor and spears. If they don’t get hit in the rear by cavalry, they could concur all.
I suppose if you've beaten everyone into submission, they then have to agree with you.

#327 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: June 25, 2016, 11:08 AM:

"I agree whole hardly".

#328 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: July 03, 2016, 04:04 PM:

"...felt in know way restricted."

#329 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: July 03, 2016, 11:00 PM:

"Our dresses give you the instant hourly glass figure."

#330 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: July 04, 2016, 09:31 AM:

"...people would rather watch the tennis with their dog as apposed to their partner."

#331 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 04, 2016, 06:50 PM:

From an SFGate story on Juno:
After reaching a max speed of 165,000 mph — fast enough to fly around Earth in nine minutes — Juno will slam on the breaks by firing its engines. This is where things get tricky.

I don't know it is automiscorrect or someone who's using speech-to-text an not checking it.

#332 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2016, 04:57 AM:

P J Evans@331 - Them's the brakes.

#333 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2016, 11:07 PM:

"what do you guise think?"

#334 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2016, 01:36 AM:

"After the events of the movie, Our Hero goes on the lamb..."

I, um, don't think I've ever seen it called that before...

#335 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2016, 07:58 AM:

Carrie S@334

Said the narrator sheepishly?

:-)

#336 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2016, 09:12 PM:

"After reading through this, I don’t want anyone pronouncing Ralph Lauren’s last name in the same alliteration as Sophia Lauren [sic]."

#337 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2016, 11:29 PM:

"Don't be a pre Madonna"

#338 ::: Tatterbots ::: (view all by) ::: July 20, 2016, 11:41 AM:

On tipping in restaurants: "Its a potential mind-field."

#339 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2016, 01:40 AM:

So, a guy I know was perusing the a.s.s.m archives (purely for scholarly purposes you understand) and came across a story where "phonemes" was used where "pheromones" was intended. The story was old enough that I don't think this was a Cupertino (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/myl/languagelog/archives/002911.html).

In a medical device testing job, I encountered another substitution that was a Cupertino. Many of the test scripts required a recirculating tube set, and endless loop of tubing filled with water to exercise the pump on the device. The problem was that in some of the the scripts, "recirculating" had been changed to "recalculating". I wondered about this, and fixed it when I found it, but never investigated. Several years later I found out that if MS Word doesn't recognize "recirculating", "recalculating" is its first suggested correction.

#340 ::: dana ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2016, 10:20 AM:

"shouldering on"

#341 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2016, 12:14 PM:

"religious anti-science sediment"

#342 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2016, 01:08 PM:

@341: Well, some religions believe man was made from mud, so I guess it could be right...

#343 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2016, 01:09 PM:

In connection with other events this week:
nomination by acclimation

#344 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 12:13 AM:

And another:
NOW comes the coup de gras

#345 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 12:13 AM:

And another:
NOW comes the coup de gras

#346 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 12:14 AM:

@#$%& Win10 and IE.

#347 ::: Craft (Alchemy) ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 04:21 AM:

PJ Evans @344: In my experience (UK) LARPers and tabletop roleplayers produce that one all the time - usually spoken, though; they'll spell it correctly, but say "coo de grah".

I think it's a hypercorrection: people know it's a French phrase, correctly remember that French often doesn't pronounce final consonants, and then incorrectly assume that applies here.

#348 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 08:13 AM:

The -p in coup is not pronounced (it is not one of C, F, L, R), so that part's right.

#349 ::: C. Wingate ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2016, 08:30 AM:

re 3344 et seq: I'm pretty sure they're imitating some cartoon character but I couldn't tell you whose catchphrase it is.

#350 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 31, 2016, 03:04 PM:

"But can we all take a minute and marinate on the fact that he looks like Ash?"

#351 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 31, 2016, 10:19 PM:

"Eleanor was FDR’s eyes and ears in the country, she traveled endlessly, and she campaigned for human rights issues ignored by our society in those daze"

The days when the country was in a daze?

#352 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 09:08 AM:

Sadly, a classic mistake:

"Pence will be elevated by this, especially if he takes the "clean up the mess" roll."

#353 ::: Pendrift ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 09:26 AM:

Craft (Alchemy) @347: I didn't realize how common an error this was. A quick search tells me it's used twice in Kill Bill, for instance. "Coo de grah" is the correct pronunciation of coup de gras; the error is in the "gras" part, which means grease or fat (as in foie gras, fat liver). The expression should be written coup de grâce and pronounced "coo de grass".

#354 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 03:07 PM:

So if I whack someone with a bag of lard (my stomach, for example) that's a proper coup de gras?

#355 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 03:49 PM:

354
AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!
(also, nice work!)

#356 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 04:13 PM:

*bows*

#357 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 06:29 PM:

Really, I should stop reading the comments elsewhere:

"There are plenty of people in this country that believe in the occult of the Donald."

#358 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2016, 10:12 PM:

In terms of French hypercorrection, I heard one quite often when I was a tournament chess player in California. There's a phrase "en prise" that means a piece is threatened with capture; just about everybody said "on pre" when it should be "on preez".

#359 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: August 02, 2016, 01:09 AM:

"You've never suck out medical advice?"

(That has to be a generalization from "sneak --> snuck", right?)

#360 ::: Craft (Alchemy) ::: (view all by) ::: August 02, 2016, 04:37 AM:

Pendrift @353: The weird thing is that I'd bet that most of the people I hear saying "coo de grah" have learned it by reading ("coup de grace" is a reasonably common term to find in RPG or wargaming sourcebooks; the language of LARP is heavily influenced by the language of tabletop), but have somehow got from the correct spelling to the wrong pronunciation. I think this is where the hypercorrection comes in.

Xopher @354: *applause*

David Goldfarb @358: That's really interesting. I wonder what other instances of this kind of error are out there?

#361 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: August 02, 2016, 10:48 AM:

I've just heard the phrase "early adapters" about six times from different people on one radio interview. The context is people who immediately run out to get the latest-and-greatest thing, not people who are particularly protean...

#362 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 02, 2016, 11:42 AM:

Pfusand #357: Well, a lot of folks think he's the devil, but most don't mean it literally!

#363 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 02, 2016, 01:55 PM:

And lots of us would be in favor of his occultation.

#364 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: August 04, 2016, 11:51 AM:

Craft (Alchemy)@360: I wonder what other instances of this kind of error are out there?

The word "verdigris" might count, in either or both of English and French. In English I've heard the final "s" dropped as if in French; and I believe French now uses "vert-de-gris", which does drop the final "s". But, if I'm reading the etymology correctly, the common origin of the two is "verte de Grece" ("green of Greece"), which would have a final consonant even in modern French, and the term came into English with a final consonant.

#365 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 05, 2016, 12:42 AM:

Someone on Twitter was saying wacky things, and repeatedly proclaiming "Just my onion."

I commented that he really needs to pay attention to the text his autocomplete produces.

#366 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: August 05, 2016, 09:12 AM:

Xopher (365): I am amusingly reminded of my family's oft-repeated pronouncement "That's an opinion. Opinions are subject to controversy."

Wacky-twitter-dude's autocomplete would turn that into "Onions are subject to controversy." Why, yes. Yes they are.

#367 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 05, 2016, 09:11 PM:

*hopes someone here got his pun*

#368 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: August 05, 2016, 09:42 PM:

Xopher (367): I do now. But not until you mentioned that there was one.

#369 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2016, 12:16 AM:

Mary Aileen 368: That'll do!

#370 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 11:45 AM:

Craft (Alchemy) @ various: do your gamers also refer to gods as "die-teez", or a magically-enforced onus as a "geese"? I've heard these are common in the US, but don't know directly as I haven't RPG'd for a long time; the closest I've come was providing some bureaucratic disentanglement for what may have been the first public LARP (Boskone, February 1982).

#371 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 01:24 PM:

I think the SCA tourneys of the late 60s count as public LARPs, CHip (the Baycon Tourney was at least as public as something at Boskone); and possibly some of the Coventry games before that in LA.

#372 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 01:48 PM:

CHip @370: I've never heard "die-teez" (I assume that first syllable is pronounced like the verb related to death, and the last the same as "tease"), and I've only rarely heard "geese".

I've always pronounced the latter as "GEE-as", with a hard "g". It's only recently (since I basically stopped using the word) that I've learned it's supposed to be pronounced "gesh".

#373 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 02:26 PM:

I say "DEE-a-tees" for "deities," and "GHEE-ahs" (hard g) for "geas". I know that the latter is wrong, but it's a habit I can't seem to break; it's one of those words I learned from a page rather than by ear.

#374 ::: Craft (Alchemy) ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 02:36 PM:

Pronunciation of "deities": all the RPers I know use what I would consider the correct UK pronunciation, "DAY-e-tees".

Pronunciation of "geas": we say it two syllables, "GEE-us". I'd never come across the "gesh" pronunciation before this thread. Huh.

#375 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 06:14 PM:

I saw someone on Facebook say today that Trump has an "IV League education." I wonder if that means he had to be nursed through it.

#376 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 08:44 PM:

Well, geas is Gaelic, at least Irish and possibly others. In Irish it's pronounced /gyas/, that is, palatalized /g/, /a/ as in 'father' (or a little darker, halfway to /o/ as in 'ought'), s as in 'seven sensational Saracens'. The plural is geasa, pronounced /'gyas-ə/.

Back in D&D days, we said /'ji-əs/.

A geas, in Celtic mythology and story, is not a spell. It is a personal behavior restriction that comes from the Otherworld, and often amounts to a prophecy about what you'll do just before you die.

For example, Cu Chulainn had the geasa that he was not allowed to eat the flesh of a dog (because he was the Hound ('Cu') of Culann), and that he was not permitted to refuse hospitality. His enemies found these things out, and invited Cu Chulainn to join them for a meal of dog's flesh. I can't recall what he did, but he broke one of his geasa and therefore died shortly afterward.

I don't know how the word is pronounced in any other Gaelic, or for that matter in any Irish dialect other than the one I studied. And I think gamers should borrow it completely and say it however seems right to them, and not fuss about others' pronunciation.

#377 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2016, 11:30 PM:

"The end is neigh."

(from one of those clickbait articles you get links to on Facebook)

The four horsemen of the apocalypse?

#378 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 11, 2016, 12:11 AM:

A friend sent me some job postings and suggested that some of them might be in my "wheel helm."

Nein, ich sagte, Wilhelm ist mein Bruder.

#379 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: August 11, 2016, 06:42 PM:

Xopher, good to know the big vote of confidence didn't turn your head.

#380 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 11, 2016, 08:52 PM:

It would have been rudder of me to say so than to remain quiet.

#381 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: August 12, 2016, 02:46 PM:

Xopher@378: To be answered with a Wilhelm scream?

#382 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: August 14, 2016, 02:59 PM:

"every once and a while" caught my eye in a promotional booklet from a technical publishing company who are usually very meticulous in their editing.

#383 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: August 15, 2016, 02:16 PM:

I've been noticing a new oddity among some of the network reporters, pundits, and assorted talking heads: they use "milestone" where presumably they mean "hallmark."

As in, "Such crude epithets are the milestones of the Trump campaign."

#384 ::: cajunfj40 ::: (view all by) ::: August 15, 2016, 03:45 PM:

Bob Webber @#383: I've been noticing a new oddity among some of the network reporters, pundits, and assorted talking heads: they use "milestone" where presumably they mean "hallmark."

As in, "Such crude epithets are the milestones of the Trump campaign."

Maybe it's a different error, and they meant "millstone(s)"...

#385 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: August 16, 2016, 11:13 AM:

Xopher @ 376: A geas, in Celtic mythology and story, is not a spell. It is a personal behavior restriction that comes from the Otherworld... So Golias "put[ting] a geas on everyone in this hall" in the middle of Silverlock is improper usage? I've never seen it restricted as you describe, but meanings expand the way my waistline did when I got careless.

#386 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: August 17, 2016, 01:36 AM:

I think so, CHip. At least by what I was taught.

#387 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: August 17, 2016, 10:57 AM:

James Branch Cabell had people laying geasa on one another as early as the 1920's.

As for 'milestones', might it mean that the progress of the Trump campaign can be measured by its movement from one crude epithet to another?

#388 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 17, 2016, 08:54 PM:

"Since leaving the White House in 2001, the Clintons have irradiated their debt and made millions of dollars through speaking engagements. "

from yet another Facebook clickbait article

#389 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: August 18, 2016, 10:27 AM:

I guess that's one way to keep creditors away, with radioactive debt.

#390 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: August 18, 2016, 11:48 AM:

A review on BoardGameGeek of the Battlestar Galactica board game says that "the Cylons widdle away at the resource dials". I think if I was on the human team in that situation, I'd be pissed.

#391 ::: Eimear Ní Mhéalóid ::: (view all by) ::: August 19, 2016, 05:38 AM:

The modern Irish singular is actually geis, according to the dictionary, and that would be pronounced more or less as "gesh". Details at
http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/geis, including plenty of examples. Scottish Gaelic has geas, according to Scannell's Gàidhlig-Gaeilge dictionary.

#392 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: August 20, 2016, 10:59 PM:

Discussing why dragon-taming, despite being cool, perhaps does not make the most practical sense: "[Dragons are] darn right dangerous..." I think they meant "downright"?

#393 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: August 21, 2016, 02:02 PM:

From an article on the CBC: "unchartered waters".

#395 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2016, 12:27 AM:

On Twitter, accompanying saaaaad pictures, "I'm balling my eyes out."

I commented that that's usually a rather more pleasant process, but had it pointed out to me by several people that it's not if it's done with a melon baller. Discussions about Œdipus getting one as a wedding present ensued.

#396 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2016, 10:07 PM:

"I was blind sighted by it."

#397 ::: GAY! Xopher Halftongue QUEER! ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2016, 06:38 PM:

From the I-shit-you-not NEW YORK FUCKING TIMES:

Mr. Roche, who was also in a relationship, sat back and took it all in. “Everyone was aware that this gorgeous woman had entered the room,” he said. But soon he and Ms. O’Brien were cutting up backstage over missed queues and fumbled lines and whatever else captured their fancy.

Missed queues. They forgot to wait in line? The NYT relying on spell checkers instead of employing copyeditors as custom, decency and all gods demand is surely a sign of the End Times.

Here's the link. In case they try to deny it when on trial for their lives later, I've also saved a screenshot.

#398 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2016, 08:35 PM:

Not as egregious, and not the NYT, but:

(((Susan Crites))) ‏@neonnurse (via twitter) Just read a Denver Post article where someone says "We don't want to kick a gift horse in the mouth." Um...no, no, you don't. 0.o
#399 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2016, 02:42 PM:

Xopher -- I'm not convinced that was a spell checker; as Teresa noted in her previous book, copy editors can also have off days (or off books...). However, I see that it still isn't fixed.

#400 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: October 02, 2016, 09:51 PM:

"I would like to do that, but since I have to deal with her in person at least once a week I reframed."

#401 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: October 03, 2016, 10:55 AM:

Heard on a Globetrekker: "were under empirical rule".

Evidence-based government--now there's a concept. Those wily Hapsburgs!

#402 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: October 03, 2016, 06:49 PM:

joann, #401: Evidence-based government--now there's a concept.

No shit. It's one I wish we had.
*wondering if there's a T-shirt or bumper sticker to be got out of this*

#403 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: October 03, 2016, 07:13 PM:

This moose would happily settle for competent government, rather than the newspaper-driven shower of canine excreta currently in charge of the UK.

Gah!

#404 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2016, 04:40 AM:

Someone is posting a story on the pagan forum I help run. It has a 'prolong'.

Given that it's an attempt at surrealism that consists of poorly-spelled, poorly-punctuated walls-o'-text, this strikes me as a singularly apt eggcorn.

#405 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: October 08, 2016, 01:55 AM:

"This pretty much summons it up."

#406 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: October 08, 2016, 12:15 PM:

TomB @405: "Draw some symbols on the floor, light some candles, read some lation. This pretty much summons it up."

#407 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: October 08, 2016, 02:20 PM:

On things to knit for winter comfort:
"a gator for the neck"

#408 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: October 08, 2016, 02:50 PM:

Carol Kimball (407): Like these?

(That does seem to be a common error; when I googled for alligator neck warmer, most of the results were for gaiters with the 'gator' spelling. Using scarf instead of neck warmer brought up what I wanted.)

#409 ::: Queer Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 17, 2016, 07:17 PM:

I have to confess one I did myself. I wrote that we try to "insure that every child has a holiday gift." Fortunately I corrected it.

You can't actually buy "holiday gift guarantee" policies as far as I know.

My stoning will take place tomorrow at noon outside the city gates. All are welcome to observe; active participants should be without sin.

#410 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: October 18, 2016, 08:22 PM:

re: dyeing in a big pot and gradually adding more tint "to get an hombre effect".

#411 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 12:22 AM:

You can't actually buy "holiday gift guarantee" policies as far as I know.

That's brilliant!

#412 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 12:01 PM:

Someone in a blog comment was worried that Muslim immigrants might try to impose Sahara Law.

#413 ::: Queer Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 01:28 PM:

Em, that's great. I've also seen "Shania Law."

#414 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 02:43 PM:

Xopher@413

"Snania Law"

All radio stations must play at least one Shania Twain song each hour?

#415 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 04:17 PM:

Xopher@413, Michael@414:

I was thinking of the new album by Sharia Twain.

#416 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 05:03 PM:

I've seen "Muslin extremists" a few times lately.

Gotta watch out for that unbleached cotton...

#417 ::: Tatterbots ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 05:06 PM:

To invoke Article 50 without involving Parliament, the Government needs "the Royal Pejorative".

#418 ::: Queer Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2016, 11:35 PM:

Michael 414: All radio stations must play at least one Shania Twain song each hour?

Raise your hand if you just flashed on Shania singing the Call to Prayer. *raises hand*

#419 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: November 04, 2016, 01:12 PM:

You know, I get that homophones are a thing, and it's especially tricky when going across languages. I try to cut people slack.

However, I feel that I must draw the line at referring to Adolf Hitler as "the Füror".

It's the fact that they umlauted the U but couldn't be arsed to take the 10 seconds (assuming they didn't already have a Google tab open) necessary to google the word that really gets to me.

#420 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: November 08, 2016, 09:24 PM:

Note to self: add "buco bucks", courtesy of Janice Gelb.

#421 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: November 08, 2016, 09:49 PM:

(good to see you posting, t!)

#422 ::: Lila ::: (view all by) ::: November 08, 2016, 10:10 PM:

Teresa! Welcome back to feeling well enough to post!

#423 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: December 09, 2016, 02:35 PM:

seen elseweb:
once and awhile

#424 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2016, 01:40 AM:

Amazon review of Burn, Witch, Burn: "This movie should burn at the steak."

#425 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2016, 04:49 PM:

This question may belong in the open thread, but I'll ask it here for the context. Are there other English word pairs with the brake/break, stake/steak pattern?

Brake/brake in particular seems to trip a lot of people.

#426 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2016, 04:55 PM:

Bruce H. (425): Different final consonent, but there's great/grate.

#427 ::: Pendrift ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2016, 05:06 PM:

Bruce H. @425, for a similar mechanism with (near-)homophones, I'd say affect/effect, but unlike the other pairs, a lot of people don't have a clear grasp of the difference. Bear/bare as well.

#428 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2016, 11:52 PM:

Lose/Loose seems to be the worst. I think it's because if you look at "lose" on the page, it looks wrong. You would expect it to be pronounced more like "Lowe's" instead of "Lew's". If only folks misspelled it "loos"; it would be a close match phonetically, and the English already look at us funny for so many other things, what's one more?

#429 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 01:20 AM:

Bruce H. @ 425: I'm having trouble thinking of any other words where "eak" is pronounced like "ake". Are there others? There's "sheik" but I don't think I see that getting mixed up with "shake".

For a slightly different vowel pair, I believe I do see leek/leak confused from time to time. There's also reek/wreak, but I've never seen them confused; maybe anybody who knows how to use "wreak" in a sentence is likely to be past spelling problems.

#430 ::: duckbunny ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 09:32 AM:

From an accident report, I offer the news that a minor cut was "oozying".

#431 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 10:16 AM:

429
I've seen "reek" and "wreak" confused. I don't know if it's someone who doesn't know the difference, or if it's automiscorrect.

#432 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 01:17 PM:

I found "burned at the steak" particularly amusing because the writer was trying for a pun.

#433 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 01:53 PM:

Bruce H.@425: I don't know if it's the full set of words, but my memory is that only a handful of words with "ea" came out of the Great Vowel Shift with that sound: "great", "steak", "break", "yea", "swear", and "bear" are commonly mentioned.

#434 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 02:06 PM:

So then "bare/bear" would fit the pattern, despite ending in R instead of K.

#435 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 04:13 PM:

So would "pear/pair/pare" I suppose. And "wear/ware".

Although that might depend on dialect; certainly they all sound the same in my dialect, but then, so does "merry/Mary/marry". But pen and pin sound completely different...

#436 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 05:41 PM:

tear/tare

#437 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 05:42 PM:

I've seen the phrase "reek havoc", and always took it to be an inverse gazebo error -- not knowing how the word is spelled because you've only heard it pronounced.

#438 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 05:42 PM:

"Pear/pair/pare" all sound the same in my dialect as well, as do "wear/ware" (and "where").
But "merry/Mary/marry" are definitely three different sounds to me, and pen and pin sound completely different as well...

#439 ::: Singing Wren ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 06:25 PM:

For further reference, I hear pear and wear rhyming with each other, and pair/pare sounding the same and rhyming with pare.

I also hear merry/Mary/marry as two sounds - merry and Mary/marry.

Given that I have relatives who were raised with the same dialect that don't make the same distinction, I wonder how much can be attributed to choral training?

Also, pin and pen are completely different sounds to me, but growing up I had classmates for whom they were the same.

#440 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 07:01 PM:

"Where" doesn't QUITE sound like "ware" or "wear"; it's slightly breathier. So is "which" as opposed to "witch". Oddly, I make no distinction between "when" and "wen".

#441 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: December 20, 2016, 07:24 PM:

Del 436: Indeed, tier/tear/tare, the ends being distinct and homophonic with the two words in the center homograph.

#442 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2017, 01:13 AM:

In an obituary for the great historian and California State Librarian, Kevin Starr: "Dr. Starr attended St. Ignacious High School"

#443 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2017, 04:41 AM:

I think it's time for an airing of this poem:

The Chaos - by the Dutch writer G. Nolst Trenité, written in 1922.

Also know as English Pronunciation

Definitely British English pronunciation, and for a native speaker hard to read aloud due to fits of laughter!

#444 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2017, 06:47 PM:

This afternoon my coworker was looking at a website that also collected these. (I think they were real, not made up on the spot.) The two that stuck in my mind:

someone who spoke porch and geese

playing rush and roulette

That first one took me a minute to parse correctly.

#445 ::: Anne Sheller ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 02:20 AM:

dcb @ 443 - Much of it works in American English too, but there are occasional "say what?" points.

#446 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 11:03 AM:

@443, mostly it works for me, but there are a few failures in my dialect. For example, "branch" rhymes perfectly with "ranch" to me. (Same "a" as in "and"). If there's another way to pronounce either word, I don't know it. And I never knew "Pall Mall" was pronounced differently than "pall mall" (pawl mawl). Probably because I've never heard it spoken. How IS "Pall Mall" pronounced...?)

#447 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 12:06 PM:

446
I was taught that it's pronounced "Pell Mell" - it's an old game resembling croquet, and the place in London with the name was where it was played at the time.

#448 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 01:51 PM:

PJ Evans, ok, now, that's fascinating. I've heard of doing things "pell-mell" (rapidly and recklessly) but had no idea that it came from a game called "pall mall" nor that "Pall Mall" was a gaming ground where it was played. (I'm assuming the etymology, here, but it seems logical.)

#449 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 06:19 PM:

It's from the Italian palla e maglio, "pale (or stake) and mallet", in other words the game that evolved into croquet. The hoops are now a convenient way of putting the spikes in the ground at the regulation separation, but originally they were two separate spikes you had to measure carefully. You used the same mallet to knock them in as to play the balls with. When you hit the balls with the mallet, they rolled "pell-mell" across the grass.

#450 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 06:19 PM:

It's from the Italian palla e maglio, "pale (or stake) and mallet", in other words the game that evolved into croquet. The hoops are now a convenient way of putting the spikes in the ground at the regulation separation, but originally they were two separate spikes you had to measure carefully. You used the same mallet to knock them in as to play the balls with. When you hit the balls with the mallet, they rolled "pell-mell" across the grass.

#451 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2017, 06:21 PM:

...but I repeat myself.

#452 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2017, 05:58 AM:

"Pall Mall" - the road in London - is pronounced with a short 'a' as in "and" (and as in "pal" meaning friend) in both words: listen at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pall-mall

'pall' as in the sheet over a coffin, or a dark cloud of smoke, or even the verb (the quiet life began to pall" is pronounced more like 'pawl' or "Paul" (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pall).

The distinctions in three versions of "mall" I wouldn't have thought about, but I can hear the difference in the examples provided at the bottom of the page https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mall

However, "branch" and "ranch" rhyme for me as well (and on that website).

#453 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2017, 08:08 AM:

From a list of causes of intermittent groin pain:

- Cute appendicitis

I assume it started as "Acute appendicitis" but I'm not sure how it lost the initial 'A' - probably from poor copy editing.

#454 ::: Elliott Mason ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2017, 12:34 PM:

dcb @452: it amuses me when international travelers refer to the strip of green space and monuments in DC to rhyme with pal.

My husband (English father) does it on purpose and as a disambiguation technique from shopping plazas, because that sort of mess disturbs him. And also because it's funny. :->

#455 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2017, 06:12 PM:

I always thought Pall Mall was where you went to shop for coffins and stuff...

#456 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2017, 07:19 PM:

Only if you've been smoking them.

#457 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2017, 01:38 PM:

"New seats with Lumber support".

Quote from a visitor's review of a movie theater, not a lumberyard. And, no, that theater doesn't show films about hard wood.

#458 ::: Serge Broom ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2017, 03:06 PM:

KeithS... Not a movie spiritually inspired by Ed Wood movie and starring James Wood and Joan Woodward, based on designs by Carl Barks?

#459 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2017, 04:28 PM:

"Lumber support" sounds like gay porn to me.

#460 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2017, 10:34 AM:

I'd swear that lumber support would describe the average church pew ...

#461 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2017, 01:25 PM:

Pit props and shuttering?

Cartel (TINLC) member #1317 as far as this moose can remember.

#462 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2017, 01:01 PM:

Courtesy of a local paper: "chronic obstruction of her airwaves."

#463 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2017, 01:23 PM:

dcb, #462: I can't even begin to figure out what that was supposed to have been.

#464 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2017, 01:55 PM:

462/463
I think they meant "airways".

#465 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: January 28, 2017, 04:26 PM:

dcb @462: I saw the same substitution in a newspaper classified ad many years ago. On a milling machine, the work table moves back and forth and left and right on ways. On high end machines, the ways are chromed to reduce wear and keep the movements accurate. This ad offered a machine with "chrome waves". The one thing the ways are not, is wavy; they are made as straight as humanly achievable. I had to read the ad out loud to figure out what it was trying to say.

#466 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2017, 03:26 PM:

On the Edinburgh tram project:

The chamber was subsequently used in the second world war as an air raid shelter and there are still artefacts from that time, such as signage, which are still well persevered.

#467 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: January 29, 2017, 05:01 PM:

Lee @463: Definitely supposed to be 'airways' as P J Evans says @464.

#468 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: February 01, 2017, 11:34 AM:

In response to one of those "X profession should stay out of politics" comments:

"It honestly begs to differ which people are 'allowed' to be in politics anymore doesn't it?"

#469 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: February 11, 2017, 02:24 PM:

"Express service is cancelled on 53 Steeles East route due to incremental weather."

It just kept getting worse, little by little.

#470 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: February 11, 2017, 02:26 PM:

(Colin Hinz posted that on FB. A couple of commenters beat me to the remark.)

#471 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: February 16, 2017, 12:32 PM:

Just spotted on the wilds of Facebook: "aiding and a bedding criminals".

#472 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: February 19, 2017, 04:24 PM:

Offered on my local Buy Nothing group: "Neckless. Brand new." It took me a minute of staring at the picture (which included a couple of other objects) to realize they were giving away a necklace.

#473 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: February 19, 2017, 05:32 PM:

"Neckless. Brand New" makes me think of a guy you haven't seen for a year, who started doing steroids 11 months ago.

#474 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: February 20, 2017, 02:13 AM:

Chiropractor may have exasperated my problem

#475 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: February 25, 2017, 04:39 AM:

So the pagan forum I help run has lately picked up a member who apparently cannot communicate in anything other than dreadful phrases. When someone finally asked him whether English was his first language, he came out with this gem: 'This is absolutive my native tongue.'

#476 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: February 26, 2017, 05:08 PM:

your round of the mill

well, I guess if you run around the mill....

#477 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: February 26, 2017, 08:54 PM:

Manager is quoted as "This is a nice little feather in his camp." Mistranscription or figure of speech? It's baseball, so hard to tell.

#478 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: February 27, 2017, 07:51 AM:

'This is absolutive my native tongue.'

Well, that can't be right, since English is nom/acc.

...I'll see myself out.

#479 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: February 27, 2017, 10:43 PM:

headline quote in the local newspaper: "recipe for ranker"
the quote in the article correctly said "rancor"

#480 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: February 28, 2017, 08:41 AM:

And on a running site, discussing wet weather and the state of the trails: "I found ducks swimming on my favourite bridal path recently."

- I'm choosing to believe that's an auto-miscorrect!

#481 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 03, 2017, 06:35 PM:

dcb #480: The confusion there (involving a groom as it does), means that someone is being taken for a ride.

#482 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 03, 2017, 06:36 PM:

dcb #480: The confusion there (involving a groom as it does), means that someone is being taken for a ride.

#483 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: March 03, 2017, 07:12 PM:

Within spitting difference of. I think this comes from an association with "splitting the difference"?

#484 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: March 04, 2017, 10:41 PM:

They probably mean within spitting distance of - no farther away than you can spit

#485 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: March 05, 2017, 01:10 PM:

Fragano Ledgister @481: :-)

#486 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 17, 2017, 04:03 PM:

A subtle one from this article, which is interesting for other reasons:

An Oklahoma state senator charged with child prostitution turned himself into authorities Thursday, a week after police found him a motel room with a 17-year-old boy.
While I'm sure he would like to have turned himself into authorities (PAF! "I drop the charges against myself, and deny your appeal!") what he really did was turn himself in to authorities.

#487 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: March 17, 2017, 04:20 PM:

Xopher @486 I missed the one you spotted on my first pass through. What I saw (and I checked, and it's in the original, not a transcription error on your part) is a week after police found him a motel room with a 17-year-old boy

in a motel room, surely?

#488 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 17, 2017, 04:29 PM:

LOL I hadn't noticed that one! Hmm...given the likelihood that this was a setup, maybe they DID find him a motel room...

#489 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 19, 2017, 03:06 PM:

From someone's list of World's Dumbest Tweets:

Why y'all acting like the world just now gettin messed up? What about slavery? The hall of cost? Pick up a book
I think the "Hall of Cost" must be the mall corridor with the expensive stores...

#490 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 19, 2017, 03:12 PM:

Also, "hollow cost" in the same list. Jesusmaria.

#491 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 20, 2017, 05:39 PM:

Xopher #489: The "Hall of Cost" is where the spirits of the dead are valued.

#492 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 20, 2017, 06:36 PM:

Fragano, #491: Presided over by Anubis, I take it?

#493 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: March 20, 2017, 07:59 PM:

No, Anubis' brother Bill (that Gates family, it's everywhere).

#494 ::: Sandy B. ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2017, 01:31 PM:

I wish this was intentional because it's absolutely magnificent (from the Energy Gang podcast): "The headwinds for coal are strong and they're coming from every direction."

#495 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2017, 01:45 PM:

From There Is No Military Option Against North Korea:

Either this administration has to accept that and talk to Kim Jong-un, or continue down a tic-for-tac road where Pyongyang responds to instigation with a missile test that further destabilizes the region—or puts our allies in the region at risk.

Which branch of game theory involves trading tiny candies on a cross-hatch playing board, again?

~oOo~

(And have I mentioned recently how nuts it makes me when people "hone in" on something?)

#496 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2017, 11:34 PM:

"European born, American Bread."

Can I smother him with white dough? Please?

#497 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: April 15, 2017, 07:32 PM:

“It’s a stick with which you wack people. Or other things. At your digression.”

#498 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2017, 04:13 PM:

Seen in the wild: "...back in the midsts of time."

My teeth hurt.

#499 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2017, 08:22 PM:

Xopher #496: Just throw a loaf of Wonder Bread at them, probably wouldn't even count as assault.

#500 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2017, 08:36 PM:

Carol, are you on LSG?

#501 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2017, 09:25 PM:

No, Dave. But if I threw the raw dough at them, it might be battery.

#502 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: April 17, 2017, 08:22 AM:

Add some seasoning and it'd be a salt and battery.

g,d&rvvvf

#503 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: April 17, 2017, 08:31 AM:

Jacque @ #495

There's that now obsolete tool for sharpening certain kinds of fish: the carp hone. (We still have carphone warehouses in England, but I don't think they actually keep them in stock.)

#504 ::: D. Potter ::: (view all by) ::: April 17, 2017, 11:44 AM:

Would the warehouses be the repositories of mass carp hone? Sounds cheesy to me...

#505 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: April 17, 2017, 12:01 PM:

Cadbury Moose@503: There's that now obsolete tool for sharpening certain kinds of fish: the carp hone. (We still have carphone warehouses in England, but I don't think they actually keep them in stock.

Better to keep them in stock if you want the stock to get all the flavor.

#506 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2017, 07:15 PM:

Carrie S. @ 500

Yup.

#507 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2017, 11:37 AM:

A guy wakes up to find himself covered in bedbug bites:
I come to find out that three units in my building are aware that the woman directly above me has her apt invested.

#508 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: May 08, 2017, 09:48 PM:

Unchartered waters

#509 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: May 10, 2017, 07:57 PM:

"The dye is cast."

Poor kid; I didn't have the heart to correct him. He was tweeting about Trump-Russia with great sincerity. I mean, Holi smokes, how mean can you be?

#510 ::: Jim Parish ::: (view all by) ::: May 10, 2017, 10:58 PM:

I can think of situations - even involving Trump-Russia - in which "the dye is cast" would be perfectly correct. Such situations would probably end in arrests, though.

#511 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: May 11, 2017, 11:48 AM:

You know what Holi is, Jim?

#512 ::: Jim Parish ::: (view all by) ::: May 11, 2017, 12:07 PM:

Obviously, I didn't; but I do now.

I stand by my previous comment, however.

#513 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: May 11, 2017, 12:34 PM:

Reported previously, but just saw it again: "He thinks he's getting away with impeding the investigation but he's got another thing coming."

#514 ::: Rainflame ::: (view all by) ::: May 14, 2017, 10:43 PM:

This may turn out to be a blessing in the skies.

#515 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: May 15, 2017, 06:22 PM:

"A test of his own medicine."

#516 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2017, 10:42 AM:

the stock and trade
[/sigh]

#517 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2017, 01:19 PM:

This moose has seen 'the stocking trade' somewhere.

#518 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2017, 03:22 PM:

Cadbury Moose (517): I've seen stores that only sell socks; surely they're in the stocking trade? ;)

#519 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2017, 10:18 PM:

So the idea of brushing my teeth with dirt didn’t phase me at all.

#520 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: May 30, 2017, 06:59 PM:

sinking your iPod

#521 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: May 30, 2017, 07:52 PM:

520
Are they waterproof?

#522 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2017, 03:35 PM:

"When it comes to historical or periodical films..."

OK, The Devil Wears Prada is a periodical film. But that's not what they meant.

#523 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2017, 04:59 PM:

522
Would films about newspapers and magazines count as periodical?

#524 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2017, 06:58 PM:

Would Serial Mom be a periodical film?

#525 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2017, 11:22 PM:

The Devil Wears Prada was a film about the editor of a magazine. That's what I meant.

#526 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2017, 09:21 AM:

"I collect millinery radios"

Presumably these are the helmet-mounted variety?

#527 ::: dana ::: (view all by) ::: June 05, 2017, 02:09 PM:

Or perhaps a periodical film is the sort that they only show every so often?

#528 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 06, 2017, 10:20 PM:

Em at #110: Hyperbolic needle:

You should not use a hyperbolic needle unless you are asymptomatic.

#529 ::: Em (now Em, BA!) ::: (view all by) ::: June 06, 2017, 11:20 PM:

Erik @528 : That is glorious.

#530 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 12:05 AM:

Even a parabolic needle strikes me as a risky proposition.

#531 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 09:35 AM:

529
Congratulations!

#532 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 03:31 PM:

@528, @530: Is the discussion now getting metabolic?

#533 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 06:06 PM:

Clifton @ #532

As long as it doesn't get hypergolic we should be OK.

(Do not cross this thread with O.T.217 or there will be "boom today".)

#534 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 07:41 PM:

They also released their self-entitled debut album that year.

#535 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 07, 2017, 08:28 PM:

Perhaps a small gazebo that spontaneously combusts would be a hypergola.

#536 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: June 09, 2017, 04:06 PM:

Erik @ 535: Bravissimo! (And fortissimo when the flames reach the fireworks.)

#537 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: June 10, 2017, 01:49 PM:

"You see a well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo."

#538 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: June 10, 2017, 02:44 PM:

You must face the gazebo alone!

#539 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: June 18, 2017, 05:19 PM:

Someone I knew back in college just messaged me on Facebook, reminiscing about how I used to wear "purple overhauls."

OK, now we're going to make EVERYONE royalty!

#540 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 29, 2017, 12:18 AM:

"case and point", when talking about the latest changes to some of the games with Marvel character.

#541 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: July 03, 2017, 05:38 PM:

In a description of equipment that might be useful to a private investigator: "a jeweler's loop".

It's a small-press book, so presumably it had at least some pretense of editing. And the correct word is specialty jargon -- but all the more reason for making sure that you get it right if you know enough to use it.

#542 ::: cajunfj40 ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 11:06 AM:

In talking about what version of a device to use for testing: "... needs to have all the latest belts as weasels ...".

Genuine LOL at that one.

#543 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 11:21 AM:

Previously seen on Making Light: Large flattened weasels make very poor books. Not sure what kind of belts they make.

Oh, wait, other way around. Never mind.

#544 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 05:15 PM:

This was the headline in an online HLN magazine I follow:

Hoboken Police Arrest Man With Warrants Found In Hudson Street Building
I read the article and was disappointed to discover that it doesn't explain how the warrants got into the building, who found them, or why they were still valid.

English needs parentheses. Either that or German-style compounding. "Police Arrest Warrant-Having Man Found In Hudson Street Building" would be clearer, but it's at best deeply awkward in English.

#545 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 05:32 PM:

544
They'd have been fine if they'd dropped "with warrants". (I wish they'd get someone else to read the headlines and provide feedback.)

#546 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 06:19 PM:

I think they were trying to make it clear that they didn't arrest him just because he was in the Hudson Street building. But I agree with you that that information didn't need to be in the headline.

#547 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 06:44 PM:

I might hyphenate Man-with-Warrants if I were trying to get all that into the headline. It's not right, but it's not as awkward English as your example of Warrant-Having Man.

#548 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2017, 09:21 PM:

How about "Police arrest wanted man..." I'm fairly sure having warrants out on you is one of the primary definitions of 'wanted' in the legal context.

#549 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 12:11 AM:

Mary Aileen 542: True. I was (foolishly, perhaps) trying to parallel the German construction, which would be something like 'Optionsscheinehabender Mann'.

#550 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 09:24 AM:

Carrie S. (548): I'm not sure. To me 'wanted' sounds more serious than 'have warrants out on'. 'Wanted' would be for a major crime; 'has warrants' could be something minor, like missing a court date.

That could just be me, though.

#551 ::: Cassy B ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 01:29 PM:

Man with Warrants Arrested; Found in Hudson Street Building.

"Police" is unnecessary unless citizens' arrests are common in the region.

#552 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 02:42 PM:

551
or
Man Arrested on Warrants; Found in Hudson Street Building

#553 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 02:49 PM:

551/552: Those both work.

#554 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 06:18 PM:

Email from somebody who said he wanted us to do something for him at our "earliest possible conveyance"

#555 ::: MJ ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 06:38 PM:

#553
Or
Man Found in Hudson Street Building Arrested on Outstanding Warrants

#556 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: July 08, 2017, 07:11 PM:

Erik @#554

Call him a taxi.

<Omnes>"You're a taxi!"

#557 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 09, 2017, 08:23 AM:

Received in my work email today:

"He was not stratified with the quality."

Fortunately, the work in question wasn't mine. I like to think my work is more layered.

#558 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 09, 2017, 08:24 AM:

Received in my work email today:

"He was not stratified with the quality."

Fortunately, the work in question wasn't mine. I like to think my work is more layered.

#559 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: July 12, 2017, 08:02 AM:

Talking about a training schedule: "which throws it out of sink a little."

#560 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 12, 2017, 04:14 PM:

see at Daily Kos:
when it was au current to say

#561 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: July 12, 2017, 07:20 PM:

P J Evans@560

Obviously a highly charged situation. Possibly with an impending volt-face.

#562 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: July 15, 2017, 09:44 PM:

Posted on a neighborhood mailing list in which I participate:

FOUND -- blue pibble puppy

Illustrated with a photo of a young pit bull. It took me several days to figure that one out.

#563 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 15, 2017, 11:43 PM:

"Pibble" is fairly common slang for the breed among those who own and/or breed them; I think it may be an attempt to cut down on the Scary Dog image by giving them a cutesy nickname.

#564 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: July 15, 2017, 11:45 PM:

Unless it's a reference to Peter Dickinson's series detective James Pibble!

#565 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 10:33 AM:

"...teleporting to a different dementia".

#566 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 10:33 AM:

"teleporting to a different dementia".

#567 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 03:33 PM:

Carrie, #593: Interesting -- I didn't know that. This mailing list gets a fair number of postings about found pit bulls needing a foster home; many of them have scarring around the face, which indicates that they were probably dumped for not showing fighting ability. I've met a lot of pit bulls, and they are amazingly sweet-tempered and friendly dogs by nature. I can't imagine the kind of abuse it would take to turn one vicious.

#568 ::: Fade Manley ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 03:44 PM:

I think "pibble" is like "doxie" in being a breed nickname that's pretty common in some places but not immediately clear if you haven't run into it before.

#569 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 05:50 PM:

Last week on Craigslist I encountered "dotson" for dachshund.

#570 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 16, 2017, 06:15 PM:

Bruce H. (569): Spoken not written, but I have a friend who insists on pronouncing that 'dash-hound'. I finally gave up correcting her.

#571 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 17, 2017, 11:39 AM:

Lee @567: I can't imagine the kind of abuse it would take to turn one vicious.

I've heard that the thing that makes pit bulls dangerous is not their temperament, so much as that they've been bred to just not let go once they've bitten down on something.

#572 ::: Ginger ::: (view all by) ::: July 19, 2017, 01:13 PM:

Jacque, that was previously used to describe Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Doberman Pinschers, and all the previous breeds known to be "Scary Dogs". None of that is correct.

#573 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: July 21, 2017, 10:52 PM:

"Tempura paint for art class." That uniform golden-brown is so BORING.

#574 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 12:45 AM:

I'm really not sure it's worth pointing out the use of "Here, here!" as an expression of agreement anymore. I cannot actually remember the last time I saw someone use the right word.

#575 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 02:36 AM:

Carrie 574: Here's the last time I used it on ML.

#576 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 02:54 AM:

Xopher: By which, of course, you mean "Here! Here!"

#577 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 02:54 AM:

Xopher: By which, of course, you mean "Here! Here!"

Poss dup; ISE

#578 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 02:55 AM:

THANK you, Internal Server Error, for blowing my punchline. ::sulk::

#579 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 07:24 AM:

There, there...

g,d&rvvvf (before the ISE fairy catches up with this moose).

#580 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 08:32 AM:

There's an exchange in Barbara Hambly's Star Trek novel Ishmael* that goes
"Hear, hear!"
"There, there."
"Where, where?"
"Now, now."
The Vulcan in the room (not Spock, who is missing) is Not Amused.

*a lot more fun than it has any right to be

#581 ::: Sarah E ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 12:06 PM:

Lee @ #562: That reminds me of a James Herriot story where's covering for a vet in another town and keeps getting messages passed along by the landlady from "Mr. Pimoroff" (who turns out to be a Mr. Pimm, in a nearby village called Roth), or "Smiling Harry Syphilis," which turns out to be a farmer whose pigs have swine erysipelas.

Fade Manley @ #568: I've seen some people call Siamese cats "meezers."

#582 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 12:37 PM:

In an email sent to me regarding cancelling a subscription & also cancelling the direct debit from the bank: "for your piece of mind."

#583 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 01:14 PM:

Sarah E @581: I've heard Siamese cats called "measles", myself.

#584 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 05:05 PM:

I sometimes write 'Hear here!', which I believe is a quotation from The Phantom Tollbooth.

#585 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2017, 05:47 PM:

"He's a little higher up the management food change."

#586 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 23, 2017, 02:20 AM:

Do autocarrots count?

#587 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: July 23, 2017, 09:01 AM:

>> Do autocarrots count?

Yes. If they survive the editing(?) process(??), they're just as dreadful.

#588 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: July 23, 2017, 11:01 AM:

Autocarrots would presumably useful to anyone with a pet rabbit...

#589 ::: dotless ı ::: (view all by) ::: July 25, 2017, 11:23 AM:

Michael I@588: I would associate autocarrots more with a pet rabbi.

#590 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2017, 08:12 PM:

From the Materials category at Craigslist: rustic waynes coating.

#591 ::: Singing Wren ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2017, 08:40 PM:

Seen on a wiring diagram:
"Half function electronic spark control"

(Which does seem to explain a lot about that wiring harness...)

#592 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: July 28, 2017, 03:29 AM:

From a BBC News item about Bland, Dull and Boring (.au, .uk & ,us, respectively):

"It's a bit like visiting a sight that you see on the telly."

#593 ::: Azzeddine Tamlakoutan ::: (view all by) ::: July 28, 2017, 06:27 PM:

great thank you

#594 ::: Mary Aileen suspects spam ::: (view all by) ::: July 28, 2017, 06:42 PM:

#593 is a new poster and not on topic. Generic praise-spam?

#595 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: July 28, 2017, 08:48 PM:

Looks to be someone who studied English in university and is working as a translator. Welcome, Azzeddine! If you have some dreadful phrases to share, this is the place. The more general conversation is over on the Open Thread. Do you perhaps write poetry?

#596 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2017, 12:15 AM:

"...what is probably needed is a route and branches review (of the categories)" -- Clearly a call for network analysis!

#597 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2017, 05:24 AM:

I have just regretfully put aside a real estate listing for a nice looking house that is really outside my price range - no doubt due to it being, as the listing proudly proclaims, in a "sort after" location.

#598 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2017, 12:57 PM:

Is it just me, or is the current political covfefe completely unprecedented?

#599 ::: Cassy B ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2017, 01:03 PM:

@598, one can only wish that it was unPresidented.

#600 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2017, 07:51 PM:

It's not exactly a dreadful phrase, but there's a land sale that's been "advertised" (public notice) in my local weekly for several weeks: Parcel One: All that certain tract or parcel of land situate in Albemarle County, Virginia, containing 14.9519 acres, more or less, and being on the residue of a 16.94 acre parcel...

First Thought: Six digits of precision... "more or less". ;-) Highlighted by both the 4-digit original parcel, and the trailing 9 in the value. Second thought: Looks like 0.0001 acre is about 4 square feet. Given how hilly things are around here, I'd bet the landscape itself voids at least two of those digits of precision.

#601 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 01, 2017, 10:21 PM:

600
Reminds me of seeing a parcel on an assessor's map that was 0.01 feet wide (an eighth of an inch!) and a hundred or so feet long. I looked at that one and said, "dude, that's survey error!"

#602 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: August 03, 2017, 01:26 PM:

Ask a Manager is having a thread on coworkers who use words wrong. Lots of good ones, some NSFW.

#603 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: August 09, 2017, 04:34 AM:

Someone on a neighborhood mailing list is looking for a "mirrowed dresser". Repeated twice, in the header and the text, so not just a typo.

#604 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 09, 2017, 06:41 PM:

Benjamin Moore's Color of the Year, Shadow 2117-30, is allusive and enigmatic — a master of ambiance.

#605 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: August 13, 2017, 02:54 AM:

Heh. That mailing list is the gift that keeps on giving. Today it's "3 peace living room table set for sale".

#606 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 14, 2017, 01:40 PM:

Just seen elseweb, in a comment about White House infighting:
mono-a-mono

#607 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: August 14, 2017, 04:48 PM:

Erik Nelson #604: I quite missed the allusion.

Lee #605: Talk about giving peace a chance.

P J Evans #606: "Mono", inter alia, is the Spanish both for "cute" and "monkey". I forbear to say what image that phrase brought to mind, save that it involved people named Bannon and Miller.

#608 ::: Odalchini ::: (view all by) ::: August 16, 2017, 04:14 AM:

On BBC Radio 4, an item about work that's just starting on London's Houses of Parliament tower that has the clock and the Big Ben bell, which is controversially being silenced for the safety of the workers: someone says, surely they could wear ear offenders.

#609 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: August 16, 2017, 05:38 PM:

Odalchini #608: That would bring them under the Offenses Against The Person Act.

#610 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: August 16, 2017, 10:58 PM:

Just saw 'tongue and cheek' again.

#611 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: August 22, 2017, 08:47 PM:

"In my point of you..."

(To be fair, the writer may not be a native English-speaker)

#612 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2017, 01:25 PM:

"Her boss knew the Daredevil well enough to chassis him."

#613 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2017, 03:25 PM:

This latch can only be opened with disposable thumbs.

#614 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2017, 03:32 PM:

Em, I wish I'd applied this crazy-glue with disposable thumbs. <grumble-grumble-scraping-at-artificial-callouses-grumble>

#615 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: August 29, 2017, 12:39 AM:

Just saw an article calling Joel Osteen "a bold-faced liar."

Sigh.

#616 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: September 01, 2017, 08:56 PM:

Just heard a commenter on TV saying he hoped a classic building would "stand the testament of time."

#617 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: September 05, 2017, 11:41 PM:

"gave me a rest bit before a busy week"

#618 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2017, 10:29 PM:

P J Evans 601, maybe you could build a fence on that parcel of land?

#619 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 06, 2017, 11:27 PM:

618
I think there was a fence on it. All of it, and then some. *g*

#620 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 10, 2017, 10:24 PM:

a halter top with bare mid drift

Most of the time, they stay put, don't they?

#621 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: September 12, 2017, 03:39 PM:

"Society, school, experience and our immediate environment usually teach us to be careful and weary of dangers."

I'm weary of writers who don't know the difference between 'weary' and 'wary'.

#622 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 06:51 AM:

'weary' and 'wary'
As a lector at a Catholic mass, one Sunday I was reading aloud the Prayers of the Faithful, which are typed out for us, and are often specific to the season or the day's readings or current events. This one was supposed to echo one of the day's readings from St. Paul and ask for the grace to pray without growing weary. My typed sheet asked for the grace to pray without growing wary, and I read it aloud before I realized the typo. And came very close to a bad case of the giggles at the front of church. I've been religious (heh) ever since about reading over all the prayers before the service, not just the ones where I might need to check the pronunciation of someone's name.

Be careful what you pray for...

#623 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 10:46 AM:

I have a couple of friends who even pronounce "wary" as "weary" and I am rather weary of it! Admittedly, they are dyslexic, so I am wary of correcting them unless I'm genuinely confused; it strikes me as unkind, since they haven't asked.

#624 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 12:39 PM:

OtterB @622:

That reminds me of the classic Vicar of Dibley episode where Alice is trying very hard read "Ye are the ſalt of the earth and ſainted. God shall ſeal your endeavours until ye ſit on His right hand. Therefore fight the good fight for His ſake and He shall be your ſuccour."

She had practiced the reading from a modern printing that didn't use the long s, but was using a historic bible during the service.

#625 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 02:06 PM:

"[bad movie] deserved the drumming it took from critics."

Celluloid makes terrible drum heads.

#626 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 02:07 PM:

OtterB #622:

A major, and I do mean major, text published a few years ago, which filled a great need for students of Caribbean history, political and social thought, and culture, mentioned something called the "colonial yolk" in the introduction. A snarky reviewer, named Ledgister, inquired "sunny side up, perhaps?"

I might not have done it had it not recalled to me the time in school, when the hymn one morning was Kipling's "Children's Song" from Puck of Pook's Hill. The cyclostyled sheet handed out to us had us requesting the divine power "Teach us to bear the yolk in youth." One can only conclude that British imperial rule was eggscruciating.

#627 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 02:30 PM:

Reminds me of when the Messiah rehearsals got around to "His Yoke Is Easy." Boy were there puns and filks.

#628 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 03:44 PM:

Xopher@627

With you there to egg them on?

#629 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2017, 03:49 PM:

The difference between drumming and drubbing needs to be explained with practical examples, Xopher.

#630 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2017, 11:53 AM:

Today I read in the local paper about rival organizations meeting in "mutual territory".

#631 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2017, 12:49 PM:

Paul A. (630): They both own that piece of territory? ;)

#632 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: October 19, 2017, 06:14 PM:

Mary Aileen (631): Alas for a beautiful explanation, the article was explicit that the value of the meeting place was that it was owned by neither side.

#633 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: October 20, 2017, 11:07 PM:

Someone got "soak and wet" today.

#634 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: October 21, 2017, 12:07 AM:

My workplace recently did a major revamp of their website. In the section on Security, the subsection about physical security showed a screen with computer code, and the one about application security showed a corridor full of spikes. I suggested to our marketing director that each of these pictures might do better on the other section. She emailed me today to tell me she had "swamped them".

(Admittedly, that one may have been an autocarrot.)

#635 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: October 21, 2017, 08:18 PM:

Saw "stock & trade" again.

#636 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2017, 06:05 AM:

... from a post on FB, from someone on vacation: "Lots of site seeing tomorrow"

#637 ::: Cassy B ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2017, 08:16 AM:

@636, well, if one went on a historical-places tour, or were visiting several possible locations for a proposed building, I suppose site seeing would be an appropriate phrase. (If one went to a that Trump-tweet exhibit put on by the Daily Show, would one be cite seeing...?)

#638 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2017, 06:13 PM:

David Goldfarb @634 - A former workplace of mine was trying to advertise that they did computer security stuff in addition to the Y2K stuff that was their main focus. They produced a glossy brochure that showed a trio in tactical gear, with a burble about how they were willing to "repel" down buildings.

My manager showed me a copy of the brochure and proudly asked me what I thought of it. I skimmed it, trying to keep a positive expression on my face (vs. appalled, which was how I felt), until I tripped over "repel". I pointed it out to him and asked if they were using antigrav boots or something. I had to explain: using gear to go down a cliff or whatever was spelled "rappel". He got a bit upset; copies of the brochure had just been distributed to lots of potential clients. "Let's hope they don't notice that..." (I hoped that they wouldn't see any of it. I told him that the entire thing looked kind of, well, goofy. IIRC, he told me that I didn't understand advertising, which is perhaps true.)

#639 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2017, 08:34 PM:

"...makes me want to ask her name, age, and cereal number."

I guess Kellogg's Corn Flakes would have a cereal number of one...

#640 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: October 24, 2017, 08:44 AM:

I saw someone saying that they are "on beckon call to" their customers.

I suppose "beck" doesn't much appear outside that phrase. Somebody explained in the comments and they graciously took the correction.

#641 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: October 24, 2017, 10:11 AM:

A rather lovely "not the word you're meaning" from a paper I graded a couple of days ago: "a story that transposes time".

It was not a time-travel story, nor one told in non-sequential order, alas.

#642 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 24, 2017, 10:04 PM:

https://twitter.com/brian_bilston/status/922940807132442624

A tweeted poem by Brian Bilston apropos of all this.

#643 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 25, 2017, 08:39 PM:

All for not

#644 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 25, 2017, 09:52 PM:

We cannot rewrite literature for reflecting the morays of their time.

#645 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: October 26, 2017, 12:21 AM:

Erik 644: Or as Spider Robinson put it, "When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee, that's a moray!"

#646 ::: Race Traitor Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: October 26, 2017, 12:24 AM:

Erik 644: Or as Spider Robinson put it, "When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee, that's a moray!"

#647 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: October 26, 2017, 01:12 PM:

Xopher &c #639:

I'd assign cereal #1 to spelt, for obvious reasons.

#648 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: October 26, 2017, 02:24 PM:

Which of course makes me want to ask, "How's it spelt?"

#649 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: October 27, 2017, 11:50 PM:

Spelt? Emmer way you want?

#650 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: October 28, 2017, 01:36 PM:

A "space fairing nation".

#651 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: November 08, 2017, 09:56 PM:

Marking a paper, and a student accidentally came up with a really good summary of the plot of "The Yellow Wallpaper":

"A dichotomy which can be found in the story is that of 'wife versus patience'."

(They meant "patient", but you've gotta admit they're onto something.)

#652 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: November 09, 2017, 03:25 PM:

Xopher @ 645: whereas,
"A big burly guy with tattoos 'neath his eye, that's a Maori!"

#653 ::: Singing Wren ::: (view all by) ::: November 09, 2017, 07:23 PM:

Seen on as a title on a job posting on LinkedIn:

“Senior Programmar”

#654 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: November 10, 2017, 02:01 AM:

I'm officially a senior (in many situations), and I'm pro-grammar!

#655 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: November 10, 2017, 08:34 PM:

"making due"

#656 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: November 11, 2017, 05:32 AM:

I saw "making due" in Robert Reed's Down the Bright Way. He also uses "minuscule" a lot, and usually, but not always, spells it "miniscule". Shame on Reed's editor.

#657 ::: Icosahedron ::: (view all by) ::: November 11, 2017, 07:05 AM:

A laptop with a “chick-lit keyboard”

#658 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: November 11, 2017, 07:03 PM:

...could be useful if its owner happened to be a chick-lit author, I suppose.

#659 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: November 12, 2017, 10:22 PM:

"He apologized because he saw the wiring on the wall."

#660 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: November 13, 2017, 03:20 PM:

"muddle the waters"

...um.

#661 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: November 13, 2017, 05:18 PM:

...from oversees

#662 ::: dana ::: (view all by) ::: November 14, 2017, 11:31 AM:

From a yarn ad:

"...dark gray flecks that are disbursed throughout the strand ..."

#663 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: November 14, 2017, 05:24 PM:

"In his book Treaties with Human Nature, Hume poses the question..."

#664 ::: Tracie ::: (view all by) ::: November 16, 2017, 06:56 PM:

Awe hail the King!

#665 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: November 16, 2017, 06:58 PM:

Abi's recent correct use of "vise" reminded me that I've recently seen somebody use "vice" when "vise" would have better described the pressure they were under.

#666 ::: xeger ::: (view all by) ::: November 16, 2017, 11:25 PM:

Bill Stewart @ 665 ...
Given that the UK uses vice where the US uses vise, perhaps they were using it as you describe.

#667 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: November 17, 2017, 12:29 AM:

That might explain it. I have the impression that American was their native language, but that may have been some other grammatical miscreant.

#668 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: November 17, 2017, 07:59 AM:

Hmm... I note (maybe "again") that many of these would make interesting bases for microSFF.

#669 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: November 17, 2017, 06:12 PM:

I remember arguing with a friend in college over whether "vise" should be pronounced with an S or a Z sound (he favored the Z). I had to get out a dictionary to convince him that people did indeed use the S pronunciation, same as "vice." He said, "But Vice-Grips sounds terrible, like another name for love handles." Whereupon we fell about laughing.

#670 ::: Cadbury Moose ::: (view all by) ::: November 18, 2017, 11:53 AM:

HelenS @#669:

The UK version is the Mole Wrench, a handy tool for getting the persistent little b*****s out of your lawn. We also have the monkey wrench, a useful tool for the extraction of various primates from confined spaces.

#671 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: November 18, 2017, 02:49 PM:

Vice/vise causes a lot of confusion, because it doesn't get the kind of publicity that that other UK/US differences like pavement/sidewalk do. I've more than once seen people saying 'He wrote "trapped in a vice"!', obviously taking that to be wrong, and assuming everyone else would know it was wrong, without any explanation, and there was I thinking 'Yes, trapped in a vice, what's wrong with that?'. It was a while before I saw someone explaining that 'vice' was the British form of 'vise', and so discovered this mysterious word 'vise', which I had not heard of befor

#672 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: November 18, 2017, 05:16 PM:

I just checked the OED and "vice" in this sense is difficult to find. Turned out to be sense 5a under a classification in which sense 1 was "A winding or spiral staircase."

#673 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: November 25, 2017, 12:01 PM:

Comments snagged from "Not Always Right":

Clay: There's a minor circle of hell for the people who get que/queue/cue mixed up.

Richard Hanck: Those people who are awaiting a signal to form a line to receive their billiards equipment, but are distracted by slow-cooked beef or pork with a tangy sauce? They're about to miss their cue queue cue there, because of 'que.

#674 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: November 30, 2017, 08:57 AM:

Heard just now on the radio, wrt the dramatic trope that catfighting = love: “That’s a comforting thought in the current political context, when there are turgid waters all around us.”

#675 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: December 04, 2017, 09:20 PM:

Someone in a Facebook thread just wrote the word wan't instead of want.

#676 ::: Craft(Alchemy) ::: (view all by) ::: December 06, 2017, 07:49 AM:

Via Twitter: Belgian whistles (for "bells and whistles"). There are some pretty good ones in the response thread, too ...

#677 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: December 06, 2017, 08:24 AM:

Belgian whistles are what they blow at the diner to let you know your waffles are ready.

#678 ::: annejohn ::: (view all by) ::: December 07, 2017, 10:23 AM:

"It used to be that only the deliberate/wonton transgressors violated that covenant" on the NANOG mailing list yesterday ...

#679 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: December 07, 2017, 10:47 AM:

How do you transgress against a wonton? Put ketchup on it...?

(No, wait, that's how you transgress against a hot dog in Chicago...)

#680 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: December 12, 2017, 06:24 PM:

Sigh. Express.co.uk needs some proof-readers. A recent article on whether the Anglican church should gradually disestablish itself when Prince Charlie takes over as king rather than having him take an oath "committing him to uphold the tenants of the Anglican faith".

I used to live near Tennent NJ, which led to landlords posting signs with all sorts of spelling for "tenant" (but not"tenet".)

#681 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: December 14, 2017, 07:25 PM:

I recently saw someone use "incent" as a verb.

Are we going to incent people to cognish that they need to liase?

#682 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: December 15, 2017, 12:55 AM:

Careful, you might incense someone.

#683 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: December 15, 2017, 10:29 AM:

Now I am scared of transgressive wontons.

#684 ::: Bruce H. ::: (view all by) ::: December 15, 2017, 01:51 PM:

>> Are we going to incent people to cognish that they need to liase?

It's like Pope said about vice. First we endure, then pity, then embrace.

#685 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: December 15, 2017, 03:24 PM:

Right now, we have a president who has promised to eliminate "redundancy and duplication". I'll wait.

#686 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: December 18, 2017, 04:31 PM:

typo, not misuse, but I was amused.

In a Craigslist ad for a shared house: "Huge bedroom with walking closet."

Makes me think of Baba Yaga's house.

#687 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: December 19, 2017, 11:08 AM:

"Like most things under this guy it is a fait au compli."
Well, at least it manages to look vaguely French-ish.

#688 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 02:28 AM:

Seen on Facebook: someone describing dinner as being "turn-up greens and Hoppin' John". Sadly,this is a person I know.

(Not really back yet, but this was too egregious to ignore.)

#689 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 02:28 AM:

Seen on Facebook: someone describing dinner as being "turn-up greens and Hoppin' John". Sadly,this is a person I know.

(Not really back yet, but this was too egregious to ignore.)

#690 ::: Cassy B ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 07:53 AM:

Lee, I presume that's supposed to be turnip greens? I'm curious; what's "Hoppin' John" (or is that also a mistake)?

Happy New Year all; may the malapropisms we accidentally commit be hilarious, and not too embarrassing!

#691 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 09:30 AM:

Cassy B @690:

Hoppin' John is a traditional New Year's dish made from peas, rice, and bacon. It's supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. Commonly, the tradition includes greens, like turnip greens, to symbolize money.

Growing up, we'd have black-eyed peas and collard greens, which is basically the same idea (without the rice and bacon, of course).

#692 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 11:10 AM:

Buddha Buck, thanks! I'm one of today's Lucky 10,000!

#693 ::: Singing Wren ::: (view all by) ::: January 02, 2018, 06:23 PM:

If the greens symbolize money, I wouldn’t want to just hope they turn up.

#694 ::: Adrian ::: (view all by) ::: January 03, 2018, 08:46 AM:

Is it a modern take on the tradition, to eat greens for prosperity in the new year? My people eat glazed carrots to symbolize money. (What do they do in countries with multi-colored currency?)

#695 ::: MinaW ::: (view all by) ::: January 04, 2018, 07:12 AM:

#686 ::: OtterB

... ad for a shared house: "Huge bedroom with walking closet."

Looks like a spellcheck error.

#696 ::: MinaW ::: (view all by) ::: January 05, 2018, 04:46 PM:

Heard repeatedly as an ad on the local radio station:
"small batch artesian foods"

Think it must be in the ad, not just a mispronunciation.

Artisan? A very over-used word now.

#697 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: January 05, 2018, 08:29 PM:

"Artesian" almost makes sense, given the current popularity of "raw" or "live" water (which being interpreted means John Snow Turning in His Grave, per https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2708175.html).

#698 ::: Tracie ::: (view all by) ::: January 05, 2018, 10:10 PM:

Anyone else encountering news stories about the recent "inclimate" weather?

#699 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: January 06, 2018, 12:04 AM:

No, but I recently saw someone refer to "slight-of-hand"....

#700 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: January 08, 2018, 07:29 PM:

"... obviously so dirty he makes Dick Nixon look like a quire boy."

Perhaps someone could take a page from Nixon's....

#701 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: January 09, 2018, 11:26 AM:

HelenS: ::woggle:: Oh, that John Snow. Not the other one....

Tracie: No, but it did show up on a "wet floor" sign at my local drug store. At least it makes a sideways sort of sense....

#702 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: January 09, 2018, 12:45 PM:

'Quire' actually is a historic spelling of 'choir'. In some places a distinction is maintained between the choir (the people who sing) and the quire (the part of the church where the singing takes place).

#703 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: January 09, 2018, 02:56 PM:

"Have you gotten a chance to parouse it yet?"

I...

#704 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: January 09, 2018, 09:51 PM:

I've often seen the spelling "quire" used (to mean "choir") in "The Holly and the Ivy." No idea why there. It's of course also a measure of paper (usually 25 sheets).

I think the Game of Thrones guy is Jon Snow, with no H.

#705 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2018, 12:30 AM:

No H in the Game of Thrones character: correct.

#706 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2018, 10:21 AM:

Ah. So like Jon Singer.

#707 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2018, 02:57 PM:

So unlike the home life of our own dear Queen!

#708 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: January 10, 2018, 09:00 PM:

Yes, or my brother-in-law Jon Schwarz for that matter. In our world, "Jon" is short for Jonathan, which has no H in the first syllable. (In Game of Thrones many names and titles are a bit altered, such as "Joffrey", "Petyr", and "Eddard" so it's entirely possible that they just spell "John" with no H in it.)

#709 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: January 11, 2018, 03:11 PM:

Spelling seen in a meme today: you'r

Impressively, that's wrong in any context.

#710 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: January 19, 2018, 11:49 AM:

Here's a multi-layered gem from an article in Fashionbeans.

"The boutique approach, intended to reign in younger customers..."

First there's the common misuse of "reign" instead of "rein". But far worse, the phrase itself is wrong; what the author wanted was "reel in".

Oops.

#711 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: January 22, 2018, 07:40 AM:

I can't remember the exact source, but the other day I read of the "ware and tare" on consumable parts.

#712 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: February 06, 2018, 10:34 AM:

"And then the very successful robot runs a muck"

#713 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: February 07, 2018, 01:02 PM:

At The Guardian, right now:
SpaceX mission originally planned to end in orbit around red plant

#714 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: February 08, 2018, 07:22 PM:

Related:

You obviously don’t get it. Why don’t you go to the Space X website and have a look around before you case dispersions.

#715 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: February 11, 2018, 09:07 PM:

Encountered in the wild (emphasis added):

"A Spell for Chameleon" is the story of Bink, a young man who is about to be exiled from the magical land of Xanth because he has no talent -- all humans must demonstrate magic ability by the age of 25. In hope of avoiding deportment, he travels through the perilous wilderness (populated by harpies, dragons and a wide variety of dangerous magical plants) to ask Humphrey, the Magician of Information, whether or not he has any undiscovered ability.
Can't refer to a person facing unjust deportation if you're a reader of noted racist Piers Anthony. Better to use the wrong word entirely, yes sirree Bob.

#716 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: February 12, 2018, 05:34 PM:

Seen today, the perfectly lovely "one of the cravats of the profession," referring to how the profession in question might put people who weren't used to it in a situation they found uncomfortable.

Wearing ties, presumably.

#717 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: February 27, 2018, 08:29 PM:

In-tacked (instead of intact)

#718 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: February 28, 2018, 12:09 PM:

"It means your point is mute."

If only....

#719 ::: Steve C. ::: (view all by) ::: March 02, 2018, 12:12 PM:

I don't know if it was an auto correct thing, but I saw a Facebook post which referred to something as "arrow dynamic".

#720 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: March 03, 2018, 11:05 AM:

not a dreadful phrase, but worth noticing, IMO:
multiplies faster than a tribble at an all-you-can-eat buffet

#721 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: March 04, 2018, 10:07 PM:

@SandyBoynton. Because, of course.

#722 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: March 06, 2018, 01:31 PM:

Two in one 'sentence', part of a discussion about making friends with the support staff because they are the ones who Know Everything: "I dido all the remarks about the exec. C-suite assistants they are the best allies to have, if employed judicially."

#723 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 08, 2018, 02:19 AM:

Carrie 722: I aeneas your comment, but I try not to judge.

#724 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: March 12, 2018, 09:29 PM:

"Actress took to Instagram with never-before-scene moments from the award-winning television series" (clickbait headline)

#725 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: March 16, 2018, 07:42 PM:

seen once too often for my patience:
coup de gras

Which, in the context where I last saw it, is appropriate though still incorrect.

#726 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 18, 2018, 06:54 PM:

Just saw "It's a rap for the day." And they didn't mean "Here's a chantable poem about the period from dawn to sunset," either.

#727 ::: dana ::: (view all by) ::: March 21, 2018, 10:41 AM:

Better than the original: "fix the problem prompto"

#728 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: March 25, 2018, 09:22 PM:

Electronics teacher, comparing wires to nerves: "The thing to remember about nerves is, they are all fingers off a main arterial!"

Elsewhere, a restaurant had a chalkboard menu spotlighting duck livers. It was written hastily and it looked like it said "dock livers".

#729 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2018, 11:58 AM:

Angiportus: To quote the inimitable Susan Crites, "What, scrambled metaphors for breakfast again?"

#730 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: March 26, 2018, 01:08 PM:

One of the interminable listicles you find on Facebook had the sentence

"The Marvel Cinematic Universe currently has 18 titles in its’ past, and for some reasons, the most powerful people on the planet continuously have to blend in with regular people."

#731 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2018, 01:07 AM:

This was actually written correctly, but the reader during Prayers of the People the other day said "by the power of Your incarceration."

That wasn't all she did wrong, either. Pretty sure she's being crossed off the list.

#732 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: March 27, 2018, 09:56 PM:

"When [Star Trek TOS] was being prepared for its HD debut in 2006, Paramount upgraded all of the flying sequences and space background shots. While some fans thought it was paramount to sacrilege..."

#733 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: April 06, 2018, 09:10 PM:

"Armed without a compass or a map, Knight followed the sun, still scorching hot in the summer sky, and headed southward." (from a Facebook clickbait article)

#734 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: April 06, 2018, 09:46 PM:

From the same article:


"Sugary snacks were popular with the hermit. "

Is it possible for something to be "popular with" just one person?

#735 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 02:52 PM:

Well, the Sun is always south* in the northern hemisphere. Harder to notice in the summer, but you can find south if you know what time of day it is, or watch the sun move for a while. The passage isn't ridiculous, just very awkwardly written.

*that is, it's always south of a line running from due east to due west. At high noon in deep winter, walking toward the sun will easily guide you due south.

#736 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 02:54 PM:

Also, I think High Noon in Deep Winter is a GREAT book title.

#737 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 03:11 PM:

Oops, I got something wrong up there. The Sun is NOT always south in the northern hemisphere; it's always south if you're north of the Tropic of Cancer.

#738 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 04:31 PM:

I thought the problem with #733 was Armed without a compass or a map.

Armed with, sure. Armed without? Ummm.

#739 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 05:14 PM:

I bet that was an editor (human or virtual). If the author wrote "Armed with neither compass nor map," the clickbaitifier.py script goes "nope, can't use 'neither-nor', too difficult" and changes it to "without-or," resulting in the travesty shown.

But if you're right, Mary Aileen, and you may be, I'm not sure why Eric included the rest of the sentence.

So: Hey Eric, what were you positing as the Dreadful Phrase here?

#740 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2018, 07:19 PM:

"Armed without" is what caught my eye there.

#741 ::: Eric ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 02:10 AM:

“Well actually”, the sun can be due north in the summer in the northern hemisphere, and it’s already rising well north of east at my latitude.

The knight would be running in circles all day above the arctic circle.

#742 ::: Cassy B ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 09:07 AM:

Eric @741, something like that was a plot point in a novel I read some thirty years ago; I believe it was named "Parsifal"; it was a thick trade paperback with a buff-colored cover, and I don't recall the author's name. The titular (Arthurian legend) character, who is entirely naive and uneducated, is sent out into the world by his mother whose last advise to him is to "follow the sun". Which he does, stopping every noon and night because it's too hard to tell what direction to walk.... At some point along this drunkard's walk, he comes across the Holy Grail but (if memory serves) he cannot find it again once he is no longer naive, because of the zig-zag haphazard path he took. Presumably he trended, on average, south, because of the latitude of England. That's one of the few things I retain about the book. The only other one is that (while still naive and foolish) he defeats a knight in armor and is told he gets the armor of the fallen knight; he triumphantly undoes the codpiece of the knight because that's the only bit of armor he can figure out how to remove...

Odd what sticks in one's memory.

#743 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 12:30 PM:

That's Parsival by Richard Monaco, Cassy.

#744 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 01:55 PM:

@Tom Whitmore, thanks! It was bothering me that I couldn't remember the author. I tried an Amazon search (I was pretty sure I'd remember the cover if I saw it) but my misspelling of Parsival defeated me.

#745 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 03:44 PM:

I was pretty sure it was the Monaco, and ran a search on ABE with your title. Turns out that in the Italian translation, that was the title! I back-checked to see what the right spelling was. And there were sequels, which you can find by searching on the author's name (THE GRAIL WAR and I think one other).

#746 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 09, 2018, 09:12 PM:

Eric 741: That's why I corrected to "north of the Tropic of Cancer." In that portion of the world the Sun is never directly overhead, much less in the North.

#747 ::: Anne Sheller ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2018, 03:58 AM:

Xopher - the sun is always to the south north of the Tropic of Cancer at noon. At sunrise and sunset between the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox, it's north of east and west by varying amounts, depending on date and location. Furthest north around the summer solstice, whatever the location.

#748 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2018, 08:41 AM:

from this morning's Boston Globe: "...subsequently caused undo delay to the traveling public." (The former operator of the area's commuter rail service, talking about one of the rail goofs of an engineer who had so many car-driving violations he should never have been authorized to drive a locomotive.) I don't think the train actually had to wait to back up -- but I'd love to know whether that was the newspaper's error or the operator's.

#749 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2018, 08:09 PM:

From a review of a TV show: "characters who are, with a few notable exceptions, dull as ditchwater".

I'm not sure if this really counts as a dreadful phrase, because there's nothing inaccurate about it. It's just that I've always seen/heard that idiom as "dull as dishwater", so the slight difference caught my eye.

#750 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: April 11, 2018, 10:38 AM:

Lee @ 749:

I've seen and heard both, and the OED says and has examples of both.

Quick research suggests that the original phrase is the ditchwater variant (17 or 1800s), with dishwater coming along later (18 or early 1900s). One website said that the ditchwater variant is preferred in England, but the OED lists the dishwater variant first, so I have no idea.

I wonder if increasing urbanization played a role in the change of the phrase.

#751 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: April 11, 2018, 01:38 PM:

I'm unsurprised "ditchwater" came first -- it would be more widely visible since it stays around instead of being tossed. I'd love to know whether this was parallel evolution or a typo that took on its own life.

Meanwhile, a genre slip: http://www.crimsonromance.com/featured/what-is-paranormal-romance/ tells us "Most people hear the words ‘Paranormal Romance’ and visions of sparkly vamps and bare-chested wares seeking virginal human mates spring like crack-addicted leprechauns from the recesses of their minds."

#752 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: April 11, 2018, 07:31 PM:

"Dull as ditchwater" is a proverbial English phrase I've heard from childhood on. Just not in the US of A.

#753 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: April 12, 2018, 05:11 PM:

Just saw 'beaucoup' spelled 'bookoo' earlier today. Blocked him.

(No, not for that! He called me a "Nazi-Communist" because I told him his tirade on the people killed by communism was an inappropriate response to a post about Holocaust Remembrance Day.)

#754 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 12, 2018, 06:24 PM:

753
He could at least have misspelled it correctly: "bokoo".

#755 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: April 15, 2018, 11:25 AM:

from http://www.crimsonromance.com/featured/what-is-paranormal-romance/:
Most people hear the words ‘Paranormal Romance’ and visions of sparkly vamps and bare-chested wares seeking virginal human mates spring like crack-addicted leprechauns from the recesses of their minds.

A lovely sentence but brings up Mandingo-esque images I don't think the writer intended.

#756 ::: CHip ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2018, 04:13 PM:

Just in case this thread isn't dead, a minor-but-irritating infelicity in Gladstone's latest (Ruin of Angels): "knocking" an arrow (without even trying it). I wonder whether that was introduced; I've gotten the impression spelling is one of his many skills.

#757 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: May 13, 2018, 07:26 PM:

"The towel has been waived."

#758 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: May 13, 2018, 09:49 PM:

TomB @757:

That would be appropriate if picking up a hoopy frood who is in danger of being eaten by a ravenous bugbladder beast of Traal.

#759 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: May 14, 2018, 10:22 AM:

PRIVATE PROPERTY
 Intended for sole
  use by tennents,
guests and invitees,
   right to pass
 revocable at any
      time.

#760 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: May 14, 2018, 10:25 AM:

Maybe a reference to Tennent's Lager?

#761 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: May 15, 2018, 03:34 AM:

There's a town in central NJ called Tennent, which just encourages badly spelled signs in apartment buildings all over the state.

#762 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: May 15, 2018, 09:31 AM:

"... none of Trump’s attorneys have even a wit of ethical integrity left..."

The jokes just write themselves.

#763 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: May 18, 2018, 10:36 AM:

Tautology in talking about a film: "about a canine police dog".

Now, if it had been a feline police dog it might have been interesting...

#764 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: May 18, 2018, 11:47 PM:

Right now, st SFGate, a headline starting with this:
Fairytale Tudor chateau

I don't even want to think about how you can have a "Tudor chateau".
(A pic of this creature: https://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/wp-content/blogs.dir/2283/files/640-brewer-dr-in-hillsborough/ML81705317_55_0.jpg)

#765 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2018, 02:15 AM:

P J Evans #764: Looking at the definitions in Wikipedia of "Tudor architecture" and "Château", I see little problem beyond the Channel-crossing mismatch of languages.

I don't know if the building in your picture would actually qualify as Tudor style, but it seems the French word is fairly broad; you could certainly have a "palace", "manor" or "country-house" (terms from the latter article) in the Tudor style despite the style's English origin.

#766 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2018, 08:56 AM:

P J Evans, that building is Tudor as the term is used in real estate listings in the United States--it has an irregular roof line and exposed beams--but I'm not sure why someone who is not trying to sell it would call it a chateau.

#767 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: May 19, 2018, 11:44 AM:

It's Norman Tudor with a bunch of other French stuff, it's large, it's got a couple of rooms that almost qualify as State Rooms, it's got grounds, it's gated, and it's got a round tower. What else does a chateau need? My main quibble is that they should be using the word "storybook" rather than "fairytale".

#768 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 20, 2018, 02:19 PM:

AKICIML:

I collect triplets of word that matching this specification:

  1. Word with meaning A,
  2. Word with meaning B (where B != A),
  3. Word that can mean either A or B, or sometimes both.
After years of looking, I've come up with only two sets:
  1. PALACE, an extremely large and luxurious house;
  2. FORTRESS, a defensible military installation; and
  3. CASTLE, which can be either (or, rarely, both).
AND
  1. STACK, an orderly vertical arrangement of items (ob.fandom: Trimble's Law);
  2. HEAP, a disorderly mass of items, with shape tending toward a normal curve; and
  3. PILE, which can be either (but IME never both).
I'm certain there must be other triples of this kind, but I seem to have a block when it comes to thinking of them. Anyone have more?

(Yes, I know that several of these have metaphorical and/or specialized uses. Those aren't the uses I'm talking about here.)

#769 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 20, 2018, 02:25 PM:

DAMMIT. WRONG THREAD. Apologies, folks.

#770 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: May 20, 2018, 02:42 PM:

Xopher Halftongue #769: Strangely enough, your first example is entirely relevant to the prior discussion of "Château" (which seems to be French for "castle", but with an even wider range of referents).

#771 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: May 20, 2018, 02:54 PM:

Dave 770: Thank you for your kind words. :-)

#772 ::: dcb ::: (view all by) ::: May 29, 2018, 05:07 AM:

We may have had this one before?:

"a bit hidden miss"

#773 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: May 29, 2018, 10:08 PM:

In the convention app for ComicPalooza, there were two options for looking at a subset of the vendors: "Artists" and "Chotchkeys". Oy.

#774 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: May 30, 2018, 10:38 AM:

Probably had this one before, too: A neighborhood group on the book of face, on treatments for fire ants, as discussed by "a Texas A&M etymologist".

I would have thought the origins of that term were fairly simple and well-known.

#775 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2018, 06:19 AM:

Joann, #774: Not really. Even I didn't learn either etymology or entomology until after I was out of college -- and I was interested enough in science and language to pick up a lot of "how to decode Greek and Latin roots" early on. But I wouldn't call either of those terms commonly used.

#776 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2018, 06:28 AM:

Lee @ #775:

I understood joann to be suggesting that it shouldn't require an etymologist to determine the origins of the term "fire ant".

#777 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2018, 09:58 AM:

Lee #775, Paul #776:

Paul is correct.

#778 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2018, 11:55 AM:

Joke from a coworker:

Q: "What's the difference between an etymologist and an entomologist?"

A: "An etymologist knows the difference."

#779 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: May 31, 2018, 01:44 PM:

Jacque (778) Hee! I'll have to remember that one.

#780 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2018, 04:30 PM:

Joann, #777: Ah, sorry. It's chemo week and my brain is full of fuzz.

#781 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2018, 09:32 PM:

780
Ah, the joy of chemo. My brain got fuzzy only toward the end, and I'm still recovering from that part physically. (Chemo-induced neuropathy is unpleasant. It's improving - slowly. The chemo-induced Brazilian is going away much faster, I have enough head-hair now to look human. The rest is a bit slower - but it was slower leaving, also.)

My next Big Event is surgery, currently scheduled for Friday. I am *not* looking forward to it.

#782 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2018, 09:57 PM:

More good wishes to both Lee and P J Evans.
May you both continue commenting here for many decades to come!

#783 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 01, 2018, 10:49 PM:

782
It's supposed to take a hour, maybe an hour and a half, so going in earlyish in the morning (fasting!) and out maybe mid-afternoon, very hungry. (I'm taking fruit and nut snacks for after.)

They do *not* believe in informing me about what's going to happen. I'm having to use search engines (*cough* and Wikipedia *cough*) to find out even minimal information that they should effing well be telling me, or have a handout for.

#784 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2018, 10:30 AM:

P J Evans (783): How infuriating! I was fortunate enough to have informative chemo nurses, armed with handouts and willing to answer all kinds of questions. (I also looked a lot of things up on my own, because I'm a librarian and research is an instinct.)

Best of luck with your surgery. I found that a lot easier to cope with than the chemo, but Mileage Varies.

#785 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2018, 08:26 PM:

Returning to the thread theme, I just got one which came with its own comeback:

"Sorry for being semantic, but..."

My response: "You mean 'pedantic', not 'semantic'."

(Double self-reference, as the original error was (IIUC) a semantic error.)

#786 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2018, 09:48 PM:

784
In this case, it's a different set of office staff - the surgeon's people at least told me a little, but the chemo people don't do the surgical stuff (never mind that they're right next door and the offices connect physically).

(The surgeon doesn't do electronic records, and his staff is annoyed about that.)

#787 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2018, 11:16 PM:

Seen from time to time in various places, referring to a knife-care tool: wet stone.

What made me need to post it here today was a one-star review of a knife sharpener in which the disgruntled reviewer said (without saying the cited eggcorn, but other reviewers had included the phrase), 'I even tried putting water on it....'

#788 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: June 02, 2018, 11:25 PM:

There actually are knife-sharpening stones that work better when wet, with oil or water. And there are specific "dry stone" sharpeners. So I think there may be a place for "wet stone" in the canon, rather than in the rejected canon. Jon Singer would know more about this than I do. Or check out this website for a discussion on wet vs dry sharpening.

#789 ::: Eric ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 02:59 AM:

Over heard when the kids were playing — “That would be cannonballism!”

#790 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 03:05 AM:

A whetstone may be wet, but there are many wet stones that are not whetstones.

Whetting a knife makes it sharper. Wetting a knife, not so much.

#791 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 08:42 AM:

Self, exasperated, to someone parroting misinformation--"Don't believe that, it's just a stuporstition!"

#792 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 08:43 AM:

Self, exasperated, to someone parroting misinformation--"Don't believe that, it's just a stuporstition!"

#793 ::: Lucy Kemnitzer ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 02:19 PM:

Lee & P J, my sympathies! It's been 2 years since my chemo & I'm still recovering brain & energy. (I am extremely fortunate in my medical team, & living in California which has a really robust Medicaid expansion program. Sutter Health has an exercise class for cancer patients that really helps, too)
Not long ago I wrote at the rate of 40K raw words in a month: now I'm doing well to do that in a year.

#794 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: June 03, 2018, 02:22 PM:

I've always thought of whetting as more like honing than sharpening, using the distinction in the video I linked to. But that may be just my interpretation.

#795 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2018, 04:03 AM:

Tom Whitmore @788 - I've used a whetstone and oil myself, years ago; I wasn't thinking of oil as 'wet'. That still seems like a stretch to me, or at any rate likely to be misunderstood unless 'oil' is explicitly stated. But waterstones, discussed on the page you linked, were new to me (except as the proper name of the UK bookseller, of course). I'm part of today's Lucky Ten Thousand; thank you!

#796 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2018, 12:11 PM:

Sorry I hit the button twice the other day. This computer was acting funny and I might need to sharpen it.

#797 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: June 04, 2018, 08:57 PM:

"I make good money, have benefits, and am able to provide for my family without issue."

So, just you and your spouse, then?

#799 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: June 08, 2018, 12:33 AM:

Secondhand, from a friend elseNet who said it showed up on an event announcement in her feed:


"Representatives from the financial, yoga, medicinal cannabis, sensory deprivation and other industries will be available to provide information".

Really?

#800 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2018, 03:22 PM:

Seen in comments on The Space Review:

Mueller said yes, he wasn't kidding, they could not afford delays or cost increases. If they could not be done with Gemini by the end of 1966, he would just assume cancel it.

#801 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2018, 10:17 PM:

From a discussion of cake recipes:

desecrated coconut

#802 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2018, 10:30 PM:

Carol Kimball (801): I'm not parsing what that's supposed to be.

#803 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: June 14, 2018, 10:47 PM:

Mary Aileen 802: Dessicated.

#804 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2018, 12:06 AM:

Thanks, Xopher. That was one of my guesses, but I'm not enough of a cook to know if it was a plausible reading.

#805 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2018, 12:29 AM:

Xopher 803: Correcting to be polite: Desiccated.

#806 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: June 15, 2018, 07:51 PM:

@805 re @803: *snrk!* How...meta.

Meanwhile, I really want to know how one would go about desecrating coconut. And what sorts of recipes would one use that in? (I'm reading Harry Potter, so there's one obvious context.)

#807 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2018, 03:37 PM:

Don't let that intimate you

#808 ::: Tony Zbaraschuk ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2018, 06:10 PM:

Desecrating coconuts feels like it should involve Pele in some way... probably not a good one.

#809 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2018, 06:50 PM:

808
"Wigs" made of Pele's hair?

#810 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: June 18, 2018, 11:07 AM:

I always read "Pele", above all, as Edson Arantes do Nascimento the god of the beautiful game. Not the goddess of Hawaiian volcanoes.

#811 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: June 18, 2018, 11:11 AM:

Found in neighborhood forum: "legislative rigamarrow".

#812 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: June 18, 2018, 12:37 PM:

OH GOD Pele's hair! I just learned about that over the weekend. That is SO COOL. (Though it's not something I'd want to get anywhere close to, having encountered fiberglass in various forms. Eeee! Makes me itch just thinking about it.)

#813 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: June 21, 2018, 06:13 AM:

The Tumblr staff blog describes the Texas Civil Rights Project with, 'Lawyers in Texas have banned together....'

#814 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: June 23, 2018, 11:51 PM:

Just saw someone use "play homage." And it wasn't a typo, she said it twice.

#815 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 06, 2018, 09:32 PM:

In a published gay YA novel: "At least I'm not cruising the parking lot, pedaling my virginity again."

Virginity is a bicycle you ride to the cruising area, apparently.

This is what comes of eliminating the in-house copyeditor.

#816 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: July 06, 2018, 10:47 PM:

Thanks for the laugh, Xopher.

They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but I have no idea how I could pedal my virginity again.

#817 ::: HelenS ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 12:26 AM:

Could have been "petaling." He loves me ... he loves me not ... he loves me ...

#818 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 01:37 AM:

The Virgin Bicycles, a novel of youth, exploration, and horniness on the Tour de France.

Or maybe it's my Bangles tribute band, can't decide which.

BTW Overall I quite liked the book. Just like I loved the pair of books written by a member of this parish even though they consistently referred to the main city of a country as "the capitol." One notices these things, winces, and moves on.

#819 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 03:52 AM:

I wondered if perhaps they had been thinking of the virginal, an early keyboard instrument... but unlike later, more elaborate instruments such as the harpsichord and pianoforte, the virginal has no pedals.

#820 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 07:43 AM:

Ha! Our best proofreader, the [late,] great George Flynn, caught a reference to the hero "peddling" on a stolen bicycle. (This was for a reprint; the previous publisher had not spotted it.)

#821 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 09:44 AM:

Xopher, what book was it?

#822 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 12:52 PM:

@819

Once you've sung madrigals, you can no longer play virginals?

#823 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 07, 2018, 09:54 PM:

Allan 821: Social Intercourse, by Greg Howard. Bullied out-of-the-closet gay boy Beckett and closeted bi football star Jaxon, both high school seniors, team up to prevent Beckett's divorced dad from getting together with one of Jaxon's two recently-separated moms; meanwhile, the small South Carolina town where they live is about to have its first LGBTQ prom. Wackiness ensues, as do drama, misunderstanding, and romance.

#824 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 12, 2018, 10:58 PM:

A mix of cleverness and dreadfulness here: A guy on Twitter said "I don't give a fryer tuck."

I'm going to use "don't give a Friar Tuck" myself. But a fryer tuck is an event where people pig out on fried chicken.

#825 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 09:36 AM:

Xopher (824): I am reminded of a joke my brother told me in the early '70s*:

Brother: What word begins with F and ends with U-C-K?
Me: *boggles*
Brother: Firetruck!

*when good little children--as we both were--did not use† words like that
†We did know the word, or the joke would not have worked, but it wasn't one casually heard in our environment from adults either.

#826 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 09:54 AM:

825
I met that one in my first year of college, in marching band, in 1968...the school administration Did Not Appreciate It.

#827 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 10:10 AM:

Found in neighborhood forum, under "why is there a water leak in my ceiling?":

"Check that the drain pan, under the HVAC unit in the attic, isn’t overflown."

I know that some of us have a pigeon problem, but really ...

#828 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 07:37 PM:

Explaining much about the Russians and the 2016 US election:
how widespread, how deeply entranced and just how sleazy and pervasive

#829 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 09:41 PM:

Use your entrancing tool!

#830 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2018, 10:58 PM:

@825:

Q: What starts with an F, ends with a K, and if it doesn't work, you use your fingers?

A: "Fork."

#831 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: July 14, 2018, 05:43 PM:

817: Petalling Virginity sounds like the title of a book or documentary about Georgia O'Keeffe.

#832 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: July 19, 2018, 10:26 PM:

Typos from the possibly-computer-generated subtitles from a documentary about the pres's past financial dealings I am watching right now on youtube:

unfine ansible

oleg arcs

#833 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: July 19, 2018, 11:20 PM:

more from the same:

financed ears

#834 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 19, 2018, 11:27 PM:

Just had a lengthy disagreement with someone over his use of 'preaching to the quire'. It's an archaic spelling for 'choir', but IMO "preaching to the quire" sounds like lecturing to 25 sheets of paper. I told him so, adding:

Then I will make no further inquiries, nor attempt to require modern spelling of you. I wish you'd acquire a more modern dictionary, but I won't try to squire you to the preferred spellings.

#835 ::: KeithS ::: (view all by) ::: July 19, 2018, 11:57 PM:

Erik Nelson @ 832/833:

Reminds me of the subtitles on a documentary we were watching in one of the classes I took years ago. The presenter was talking about such-and-such butte.

The subtitle said "such-and-such tail".

#836 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 20, 2018, 05:46 PM:

KeithS 835: Sounds like the clbuttic error to mee.

#837 ::: Em ::: (view all by) ::: July 20, 2018, 09:20 PM:

My choir's volunteer webpage updater stepped down this spring. I can only assume that the new video uploads were labelled by the new person, as suddenly we've got a whole bunch of experts from performances.

#838 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 22, 2018, 03:42 PM:

Seen on a utility pole:
We Buy Cars
Runing or Not

#839 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 23, 2018, 11:25 AM:

Somebody on Twitter, making decorative close pins. Presumably for pinning close to a close-line.

#840 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: July 25, 2018, 12:11 PM:

Seen in the wild: "a ride of passage"

This is why I'm against spelling reform to make words be "spelled the way they're pronounced". To those whose native accent is not "clipped", "ride" would now be the correct spelling of "rite", and "rite" an archaic holdover, but it would also be the correct spelling of "ride", turning the two words into another confusing pair of homonyms.

Meanwhile, to those whose native accent is clipped, "rite" is still the correct spelling, because that's how we pronounce it. And anyway "courtship rite" is never "courtship ride", even among people with accents that are not clipped. A rigorous phonetic spelling reform might take us down the rabbit hole of mutation, like Welsh.

Maybe what we need is pronunciation reform, making words be pronounced the way they're spelled, thus bringing back "rite", "richt", and "wwwwrite".

#841 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 25, 2018, 12:41 PM:

Del Cotter: making words be pronounced the way they're spelled

...like Canadians do. =:o)

(But then, what do you do with words like "right"?)

#842 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 25, 2018, 08:54 PM:

Spelling reform would necessarily privilege one set of dialects over another. Current spelling does already, of course, but spelling things "as they sound" would require picking a sound for each word.

Do we drop all the rs after vowels, to spell like non-rhotic dialects, or leave them in like rhotic dialects (actually the non-rhotic dialects lengthen the vowel...so what do we use for a long mark?)?

Do we respell 'secretary' to be pronounced with four syllables, as in most American dialects, or with three as in some British dialects? Does 'extraordinary' begin with a vowel or not?

Spelling reform for English, at least of that kind, is a really terrible idea.

#843 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2018, 10:03 AM:

@840: ...and now I actually see the last line of @841. Ahem.

Xopher: No, we just privelege all dialects and use the IPA. #RollyourownBabel #Chaucerwasright <g,d&r>

#844 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2018, 04:06 PM:

Jacque 843: Yeah, and by the time everyone learns IPA, we will have ascended (with the help of Oma Desalla) and no longer need language at all. Problem solved!

#845 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2018, 04:43 PM:

A basic problem with IPA for text, of course, is that it accurately reproduces the spoken word: but it loses all the useful features of regular orthography. Having read through some documents from before orthography was regularized, I would prefer not to have to do so again. (Tongue continuing in cheek, just so everyone knows.)

#846 ::: Devin ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2018, 06:36 PM:

The big splits like rhoticity are actually the easy case: you can handle that the same way we do element 13. Non-rhotic dialects spell it with a long vowel, rhotic with an r. There will be some collision problems, but nothing too much thornier than British vs. American english as it stands (particularly when you get into Canadian and Australian usage).

The tough ones are going to be minority pronunciations, and position-dependent ones. (For instance, many non-rhotic dialects do pronounce at least some terminal Rs if the next word starts with a vowel. Or I can't be the only person who normally pronounces "extraordinary" without the initial vowel but as "extra" plus "ordinary" when it is explicitly contrasted with something else that is ordinary.)

#847 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 26, 2018, 09:21 PM:

Xopher: See?? Right???

Devin: Use it for beer cans? Wuut?

And then there are the voiced-but-not-written consonants, like the R Brits instert between a word ending in a vowel and the next word starting with one.

#848 ::: Devin ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2018, 02:06 AM:

Jacque, if you can turn rhoticity into beer cans, I have a WHOLE LOT of abstract concepts that would be more useful as beverage containers than in their current applications.

#849 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2018, 12:01 PM:

Devin 846: The question is more basic than that: Do we write juncture consonants?

In English no word-boundary can be vowel-vowel. There's either a sandhi including a glide (so in SAE "the pachyderm" has "the" pronounced /ðə/ but "the elephant" has /ðiy/)* or an imposed juncture consonant. In a non-rhotic dialect the juncture consonant can be r, since phonemic /r/ would otherwise not appear in that position; in rhotic ones it's generally a glottal stop (which appears realizing t various other places† depending on the dialect).

I prefer the simple expedient of not writing juncture consonants at all, given the complexity of transcribing them.

*Yet another reason why the glide after a formerly-long vowel should not be treated as predictable.
†See the pronunciation of "bottle" in some British dialects; also, my own last name, "Hatton," is said /hæt&ən/ only in exaggerated pronunciation; ordinarily it's /hæɂn/.

#850 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 27, 2018, 12:04 PM:

Sorry, somehow got and extra "&" in /hætən/.

#851 ::: Devin ::: (view all by) ::: July 28, 2018, 02:34 AM:

Heh. Of course there's more to it than the ice I could see, and of course that particular knowledge ICIML. Thanks!

(Though it seems like the choice of juncture consonant is neither random nor consistent per-speaker. I do recall something about non-rhotic speakers sometimes using r as a juncture consonant on words that aren't spelled with a terminal r... but it didn't seem to be a consistent phenomenon at all, while its use as a juncture for r-spelled words was. If that's the case, then the choice of juncture consonant is at least slightly significant (though probably Shannon-redundant and not necessarily worth transcribing into a medium with different error-handling needs)).

#852 ::: Louis Patterson ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2018, 12:02 AM:

It's controlled by the previous vowel: mid and low vowels use [r], high-front use [j] and high-back use [w].

[this maps fairly closely to the orthography because of the history of it; final vowels have to be long [or schwa] because they're in an open syllable, and centuries earlier the great english vowel shift meant that all the long vowels became falling diphthongs with second element u or i. High vowels; the only final low or mid vowels are recent borrowings or those generated by the loss of r.]

This is just an off-the-cuff analysis, mind. I'm also ignoring short-final i, because australian doesn't do that.

#853 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2018, 10:44 AM:

Going back and looking at your View All By, Louis Patterson: I just want to say that I'm struck by how much you add here when you do post. Thank you.

#854 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2018, 02:14 PM:

Louis 852: It's controlled by the previous vowel: mid and low vowels use [r], high-front use [j] and high-back use [w].

Could you give some examples? I'm not sure what sound you're transcribing with "[j]," for example.

final vowels have to be long [or schwa] because they're in an open syllable

Or /a/ or /ɔ/. Blah, claw, dit dit dah, do re mi fa, haha and haw, jaw, law, ma and maw, nah and naw, pa and paw, rah-rah and raw, saw, ta-ta, yaw.

I think I might be misunderstanding you, though. Please explain if so. Or perhaps these ending in non-schwa undiphthongized low back vowels is dialect-specific; I'm describing them as I pronounce them. Examples: the phrase 'yaw and pitch', in my dialect, has a glottal stop (not a /w/ glide) between 'yaw' and 'and'; the song from The Sound of Music made no sense to me until I heard non-rhotic dialects, because 'fa' sounded nothing like 'far', and we sang "Fa, a long long way" beginning with /faɂə/.

At any rate, diachronically the falling diphthongs were generated by the GVS, but synchronically it makes most sense (in my view) to treat the resulting y- and w-glides as consonants (at no cost in simplicity, since we need those glide consonants elsewhere). Then we only have to account separately for the junctures in the "short" vowel cases.

#855 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2018, 06:52 PM:

From a newspaper story:
"The sideshow itself didn’t come to fruition," Chang said. "Once cars start getting towed and tickets get issued, people tend to disburse."

First they disperse, then they disburse.

#856 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: July 29, 2018, 07:25 PM:

The sign on the ATM outside my office offers to "disburse" envelopes.

Such a versatile malapropism.

#857 ::: Louis Patterson ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2018, 04:31 AM:

Or /a/ or /ɔ/.

Count as "long" for these purposes. "Long" is a bad name, here, because australian english is horrible has phonemic length distinctions that don't map to the difference being drawn. Tense/lax? The RP analysis -- where the length does map -- is clearer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation#Vowels

[j] is IPA j, palatal approximant.

Yaw and pitch has an r, because /ɔ/ is a mid-vowel.

but synchronically it makes most sense (in my view) to treat the resulting y- and w-glides as consonants (at no cost in simplicity, since we need those glide consonants elsewhere).

Indeed! And amusingly, if you adopt that approach in a non-rhotic accent you merge schwa-offglide and ... r.

#858 ::: Del Cotter ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2018, 12:38 PM:

Three gods arrive:
-Athena rarrives
-Loki yarrives
-Apollo warrives

If English was like Welsh, those pronunciations would be actually written, making it hard to look "arrive" up in a dictionary under "a" unless you knew you were seeing a rule in action. I think English made the better call.

#859 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2018, 01:47 PM:

@Del Cotter,

I have Athena [glottal stop] arrives, but Loki yarrives and Apollo warrives just as in your example. Probably a minor dialectical difference; I'm in suburban Chicago.

#860 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: July 30, 2018, 02:50 PM:

858/859: I normally have a small, subtle glottal stop in all three. But if I slur my speech, Apollo warrives and Loki yarrives.

(Grew up in Atlanta with not-Southern parents (it's really complicated...), now living on Long Island.)

#861 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2018, 02:06 AM:

"The Dodgers pushed the petal to the metal, while the Rockies were content to chase a pennant on their Schwinn."

Clearly the writer meant bicycle petals.

#862 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2018, 02:17 AM:

Bloomin' eejits!

#863 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2018, 02:54 AM:

Aha! The floral part of a bicycle is the bloomers!

#864 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2018, 05:44 PM:

Almost typed into an email: "Rhesus peanut butter cup."

#865 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: August 06, 2018, 06:54 PM:

Jacque (864): Would that be one shaped like a monkey, or one with a blood type?

#866 ::: Paula Lieberman ::: (view all by) ::: August 07, 2018, 12:00 AM:

Petal to the mettle.

#867 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 07, 2018, 09:47 AM:

Mary Aileen: Given that the latter refers to the former, that would have to be a "yes." ;-)

#868 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: August 07, 2018, 10:15 AM:

When driving, I wear tap shoes so I can put the metal to the pedal.

#869 ::: Paula Lieberman ::: (view all by) ::: August 07, 2018, 12:00 PM:

And when there surface has a dip in the center and there's the someone or something incontinent about, you get the piddle in the middle.

#870 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: August 07, 2018, 12:25 PM:

And when the car made the tire tracks in Escher's print, there was a muddle in the Puddle.

#871 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 08, 2018, 12:04 PM:

Coworker: "Please step into the foray."

#872 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: August 08, 2018, 02:23 PM:

Jacque (871) Just don't step into the furore.

#873 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 10, 2018, 09:39 PM:

"is not commiserate with" (when someone meant "is not commensurate with")

#874 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 16, 2018, 03:07 AM:

"coordinated cardboard"

#876 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: August 17, 2018, 03:11 PM:

From a Yelp review about a bar: "I got a Jin tonic."

#877 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: August 17, 2018, 03:21 PM:

Lee, could be a djinn tonic. Good for the health of all of your eldritch spirits....

#878 ::: Anne Sheller ::: (view all by) ::: August 18, 2018, 10:37 PM:

Xopher @ 834 - And in eastern Iowa, the Quire is an LGBT vocal group to which my sister Cate belongs.

#879 ::: Carrie S. ::: (view all by) ::: August 21, 2018, 09:11 AM:

Seen elsenet today: "The more the marrier."

#880 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 21, 2018, 10:54 AM:

Carrie S. #879: Well, if they want to discuss polyamory....

#881 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: August 23, 2018, 01:33 PM:

Actually, most of Europe sits right between 2 superpowers with nuclear weapons, as a puffer zone.

#882 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 23, 2018, 06:38 PM:

Meals certainly were hardy on the Ponderosa.

(from a clickbait article on Facebook about defunct restaurant chains)

#883 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 23, 2018, 07:06 PM:

WSJ keeps saying that a trade deal is eminent
(in a comment at dKos about Himself's trade war with China)

Well, it might be eminent, but I don't think one is imminent.

#884 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2018, 09:35 AM:

Plus as a tea-totaler, my wife got to try twice as many samples.

(A comment at Not Always Right).

#885 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 02:46 PM:

In a cake-decorating tutorial:

Soften the sponge by dipping it in water and ringing it out well.

#886 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 03:21 PM:

Lee 885: Let the sponges ring out!

The sponges, sponges, sponges, sponges, sponges, the squishing and the whishing of the sponges!

#887 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 03:59 PM:

Yes, let us sing the carol of the sponges!

#888 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 05:06 PM:

Hark how the sponge
Blue squishy sponge
Now seems to say
Wipe spills away

#889 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 05:30 PM:

Heard about, not seen: a girl who insisted it was the "16 Chapel."

That's the one where Molly Ringwald plays Michelangelo.

#890 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 07:58 PM:

From a comment on Paul Krugman's thoughts about a trade war, this one starts off with a routine error but then leaps into Dreadful territory.

Your forgetting a big chunk of their surplus is actually a American surplus capital that is repatrioted back into the US financial system.

#891 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 26, 2018, 10:52 PM:

This one is new to me:
running ripshod over

#892 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 27, 2018, 11:56 AM:

Dave Harmon @884: That one took me a minute. Back before I was learnt better, that's how I thought it was spelled.

#893 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 27, 2018, 08:30 PM:

Jacque #892: And I suspect etymological overlap.

For me it's the very closeness of the semantic mismatch that made it not just a mistake, but a Dreadful Phrase.

#894 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2018, 01:10 AM:

Jacque 892 and Dave 893: My dictionary's etymology says the 'tee' is probably a reduplication of the T in Total, and the whole is short for "total abstainer." I'd speculate that the repetition was for emphasis, as we might say "a capital T Total abstainer."

#895 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2018, 10:50 AM:

Xopher: Yes, that was what I was given to understand was the case. After they got over laughing hysterically at my error. (Cue long and bitter rant about "spelling correctly.")

#896 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: August 28, 2018, 07:01 PM:

Xopher Halftongue #894: Wikipedia says much the same, and indicates that at some early abstinence meetings, people who signed pledge lists marked their signatures with a T.

#897 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: August 29, 2018, 05:44 PM:

A paradox shift

#898 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: August 30, 2018, 10:15 AM:

Erik: Ooo! I like that concept!

#899 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2018, 02:25 PM:

All parties must give consensus before a new transaction is added to the network

So close. So very close. Also a victim of Donaldson Disease.

#900 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2018, 03:49 PM:

I corrected someone at Kos yesterday evening who used "for all intensive purposes" in a comment. That wasn't the first time I'd seen it - but it needed to be fixed.

#901 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2018, 06:09 PM:

A picture of Freddie Oversteegen, a Dutch girl who was the unsuspecting killer of dozens of Nazis.

She apparently had no idea she was killing them. They just kind of died all around her.

(No, they didn't. She was an active member of the Dutch Resistance at 14 (as in, helped blow up bridges and stuff), and kept a lookout while her older sister lured them to the woods. She was never caught, so she was unsuspected, but not unsuspecting.)

#902 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2018, 08:01 PM:

Yet another mangled common expression:
the lights come on once and awhile

#903 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: September 11, 2018, 09:04 PM:

"I’m worried that it’s a viscous cycle"

#904 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: September 12, 2018, 07:36 AM:

Carol Kimball@903

"viscous cycle"

Evidently a real sticky situation...

#905 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: September 12, 2018, 01:07 PM:

On a blog reminiscing about the Good Old Days: "such an idealic setting"

#906 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 12, 2018, 02:54 PM:

I wonder how many of these are the result of people hearing phrases but never seeing them in written form (or only in incorrect written form).

#907 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 12, 2018, 03:24 PM:

P J Evans (906): Probably quite a few of them.

#908 ::: Jim Parish ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 10:43 AM:

At one point in my childhood, "hors d'oeuvres" and "ordurves" were two separate lexical items.

#909 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 12:47 PM:

"Wan't Cold And Clean Water?"

Peak grocer's apostrophe.

#910 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 01:30 PM:

Jim 908: I know someone for whom æng-SIGH-uh-tee (which he'd only heard spoken) and ÆNGK-sih-tee (which he'd only seen written, spelled 'anxiety') were separate items.

Jacque 909: Wow, that's the worst one I've ever seen.

#911 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 02:22 PM:

At some point in my life I noticed that MAIZ-uld and mis-LED were the same word. It was at that time that I, as others before me, designated MAIZ-uld the term for "mispronouncing, due to its spelling, a word which one has seen written down."

#912 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 03:18 PM:

9112
Doesn't nearly every English-speaking kid run into that one and think it's the past tense of "misle?"

#913 ::: estelendur ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 04:20 PM:

P J Evans @911: Yes, probably. :) But I didn't know about anyone else using it specifically for the meaning I set above when I "coined" it, although lots of people have mentioned doing the same in subsequent years.

#914 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 04:25 PM:

P J Evans (912): I somehow missed thinking that. I had my own quirks of spelling/pronunciation mismatch, but not that one.

#915 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 04:27 PM:

I don't remember what we thought "misle" meant - it's been a long time - but it was something involving mistakes.

#916 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 05:48 PM:

There was a song "Miss Lead" in the 70s. Never could make out the words, but I assumed it was about a superhero who could control gravity.

#917 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 05:54 PM:

*80s, apparently. My memories of hearing it in high school were obviously implanted by aliens.

#918 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 06:32 PM:

estelendur, #911: I never had a problem with that one, although I've encountered other people who did. We call the "mispronounce it because you've only ever seen it written" thing a Gazebo Error, from the story of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. The other way, when you misspell a word because you've only ever heard it said, is an Inverse Gazebo Error.

#919 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 09:12 PM:

When I was a kid I enjoyed stories about heroes who went off to seek a ren-dez-vuss with destiny.

#920 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2018, 10:58 PM:

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that “bedraggled” should be broken down as be-draggled, not bed-raggled. I guess I envisioned someone swathed with worn-out sheets?

#921 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2018, 08:41 AM:

920
Ah, that's another one of those "doesn't sound how it looks" words.

I've never forgotten the spelling test in 9th grade where the teacher threw in "badinage", which I'd never seen or heard before. Got it wrong....

#922 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2018, 09:49 AM:

I've never forgotten* the sixth grade spelling bee where I got 'docile', a word I knew perfectly well from reading but had literally never heard in my life. Fortunately, the rules of this particular bee allowed one to ask for a definition, and I made the connection in time. I thought, "Oh, dock-isle!" and rattled it off.

*I'm pretty sure I told this story here before.

#923 ::: Lenore Jones / jonesnori ::: (view all by) ::: September 14, 2018, 09:47 PM:

@Julie L, me, too! I'm glad I wasn't the only one.

#924 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: September 17, 2018, 11:26 AM:

Julie L. @920: bed-raggled

Oh, that's sooo much more evocative. Like "hag-ridden" only, you know, not misogynistic.

#925 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2018, 04:47 PM:

Carol @ #903: My wife and I used to most deliberately refer to our lovely big dog as the "viscous guard-dog" for reasons of silliness.

#926 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2018, 07:44 PM:

This week's atrocity:
written rough-shod

*sigh*
Someone else who seems to have never seen it in print.

#927 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: September 18, 2018, 09:37 PM:

PJ Evans at 926; sounds like something a character in a book by H. Writer Haggard would do.

#928 ::: Angiportus Librarysaver ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 10:23 AM:

Julie L, Jacques: The other day I mistyped "forgotten" as "fogrotten". I have been too busy trying to visualize how fog could rot, to speculate on whether this would make a good epithet, but I suspect it might.

#929 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 12:33 PM:

Angiportus @928: “Fogrotten” sounds like a thoroughly Lovecraftian form of decay, induced in ancestral mansions by dreadful creeping mists of NO EARTHLY COLOR, from which disembodied teeth gleam in the darkness etc.

#930 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 01:05 PM:

And another, obviously never seen in print:
fete accompli

#931 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 02:55 PM:

Angiportus Librarysaver: Fogrotten

Or it could be the plural of duck liver.

#932 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 04:58 PM:

Jacque @931: plural of duck liver

With melted cheese on top, perhaps?

#933 ::: TomB ::: (view all by) ::: September 19, 2018, 10:44 PM:

My partner is renowned for her hog-rotten potatoes.

#934 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2018, 02:31 AM:

I kind of like fête accompli for referring to a successful party.

Fog-rotten probably does work better in a Lovecraftian context, or a Neil Gaiman London, but it's also how buildings go bad in western San Francisco, aka Fog City.

#935 ::: Clifton ::: (view all by) ::: September 20, 2018, 08:53 PM:

Fo-grotten refers to dishes served with vegan imitation cheese melted on top.

#936 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 25, 2018, 01:22 PM:

Probably a typo, but I just stumbled across a catalog record that referred to The Hobbit's dragon as 'Smug'. I laughed.

#937 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 27, 2018, 08:43 AM:

From the first page of "The Laughing Queen", by E. Barrington:

The young Cleopatra stood in the window of a marble chamber.... Her small figure dilated with pride.

Say what? I don't know what word the author intended there, but that certainly wasn't it.

#938 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: September 27, 2018, 09:13 AM:

Dave Harmon (937): 'Expanded', maybe? 'Inflated'? 'Swelled'? 'Dilated' smells of thesaurus abuse.

#939 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 27, 2018, 09:14 AM:

937
Usually, it's hearts swelling with pride. I guess someone was trying to avoid a cliche, and missed by a lot.

#940 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: September 28, 2018, 07:30 PM:

"Try on new shews" —me, a minute ago. My brain? Whyyy???

#941 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 29, 2018, 03:16 PM:

Mary Aileen #938: Yeah, thesaurus abuse would cover it. But "E. Barrington" was a pretty major author in her day. (Come to think of it, I wonder if she'd become Immune To Editors by that book? it's about 2/3 the way through her career)

"You hate to see that kind of thing at this level of play." ;-)

#942 ::: Paul A. ::: (view all by) ::: September 29, 2018, 06:40 PM:

The book is eighty years old, so there is the possibility that "dilated" had a different range of acceptable meanings at the time than it does now.

#943 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: September 29, 2018, 07:34 PM:

A Google Books search on the phrase “dilated with pride” brings up multiple examples from the 18th century, mostly describing a heart, bosom, or figure (which may be intended as synedoche for the preceding pair, considering multitextual context).

#944 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: September 30, 2018, 08:59 AM:

Julie L #943: So, I guess it's not actually a dreadful phrase, but just a now-disused one that strikes modern readers quite oddly.

#945 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: September 30, 2018, 02:49 PM:

I was just putting away some sheet music at church today and realized that the title of one piece, "O How Amiable," is wrong.

'Oh' is an exclamation.

'O' marks direct or indirect address. "O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion" or "Sleep, o History! Sleep, o Prophecy!" but not *"O How" anything, nor *"O what a tangled web" or anything like that.

#946 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: September 30, 2018, 10:41 PM:

Xopher at 945, if you were magically transformed into a bull, you could write a song called Oh How Am I a Bull?

#947 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: September 30, 2018, 10:44 PM:

"We have banned together"

#948 ::: Eric ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 04:06 AM:

Erik@947: Moderators of the world unite!

#949 ::: OtterB ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 10:11 AM:

Erik @947 See T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) This Vote is Legally Binding

#950 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 10:53 AM:

Robert Sapolsky, Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology.

"Continua" are....
A continuum is....

::slapslapslapslap::

#951 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 11:50 AM:

950
also:
criteria are
criterion is

#952 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 12:50 PM:

P J: Yeah. What you said.

Likewise:
data
datum

And tangentially:
You hone a skill (or a blade).
You home in on a target.

You don't hone in on a solution ::pant:: ::pant:: ::wheeze:: ::pant:: ::pant::

#953 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 02:02 PM:

I've been hearing "horn in" on a solution recently. Which is even odder...

#954 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 02:29 PM:

Cassy B.: OMG. Haven't heard that one yet. Bizarrely, that even makes a micron of sense. Sort of. If you squint.

#955 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: October 01, 2018, 02:30 PM:

Cassy B. (953): Unless someone else* has come up with a solution, and the speaker intends to take all the credit or otherwise take over.

*or several someone elses

#956 ::: Elliott Mason ::: (view all by) ::: October 02, 2018, 01:33 AM:

Cassy B@953: So far as I know, horn in is legit and long attested -- it's a cattle-raising idiom,and perfectly cognate with butting in (which is sheep and goats).

That is, if you're using it to mean interrupt. If you mean navigationally converging to the desired target, I got nothin'.

#957 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: October 02, 2018, 08:46 AM:

Elliott Mason, I suspect that someone had heard both "horn in" (insert themselves into) and "hone in" (converge on a solution) and ... swapped definitions.

#959 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: October 04, 2018, 10:00 PM:

At what point did the word "anniversary" get divorced from the concept of "annual" / "annum" / etc., to mean simply "time-based celebration"? As in "1-year anniversary", "6-month anniversary", and so on? My manager's manager was honestly surprised when I pointed out that the plaque for "15-year anniversary" had a redundancy.

#960 ::: Julie L. ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2018, 09:09 AM:

I keep seeing the phrase “deceptively spacious” in real estate listings, which makes ne envision some sort of reverse-TARDIS house.

#961 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2018, 11:18 AM:

"Deceptively spacious" = "It *looks* big with no furnishings in it, but the usable space is actually pretty small"?

#962 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: October 05, 2018, 11:39 AM:

Was it in "Make Room, Make Room" that the floors near the bases of apartment walls were covtered with pencil marks, as tenants tried to keep track of wall positions because the landlords would shift them to make the tiny apartments momentarily larger for prospective new tenants?

#963 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 12:20 AM:

"I shutter to think...."

#964 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 12:24 AM:

963
I saw that one a couple of weeks ago. I get the feeling a lot of people don't read fiction, or anything else where they'd meet the phrases they're mangling.

#965 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 03:59 AM:

Well, to be fair, I didn't get the pun in "Knockturn Alley" until a coworker said it aloud this afternoon.

#966 ::: Buddha Buck ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 08:16 AM:

Jacque @965:

I didn't get "Diagon Alley" until it was pointed out to me myself.It makes me wonder how many other obvious puns I miss.

#967 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 08:40 AM:

Jacque (965): I didn't realize there was a pun to get until just now.

The 2001 Worldcon was in Philadelphia; it took me an embarrassingly long time to get the pun in Millennium Philcon. (I could tell that there was some kind of joke there, but not what.)

#968 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 05:13 PM:

"I like to be prepared. Don't wanna be blind sighted."

#969 ::: Adrian ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 05:56 PM:

I like "horn in on a solution." I'm still glad my high school Spanish teacher didn't know about that one. For about 3 months, she only used 2 English verbs in class. I know it SEEMS reasonable for a language teacher to encourage students to use only the new language, resorting to their native language in limited ways. But the 2 English verbs were "to waltz" and "to zero." If she had used "to horn..." I shudder to think what a roomful of teenagers would make of that.

#970 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 07:54 PM:

Sign in the freezer case of a store:

"Our store has a security system in place. Selected products have alarming labels."

#971 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 12, 2018, 10:44 PM:

Buddha Buck @966: I didn't get "Diagon Alley" until it was pointed out to me

Oh dear. Um, care to share—oh.

"Say it out loud, dear."

::facepalm::

Erik Nelson @970: I've seen those. "Don't read the ingredients!!"

#972 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: October 13, 2018, 04:00 PM:

I'd noticed "Diagon Alley" immediately, but "Knockturn Alley" not until it was pointed out here.

#973 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: October 13, 2018, 06:49 PM:

"Pulled deeply down the rabbit hold."

#974 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2018, 12:11 AM:

@973: lagomorphic jiu jitsu!

#975 ::: Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2018, 12:48 AM:

An article about food sanitation issues in an English-language news outlet from Shanghai has an interesting perspective on capitalism: "the kitchen in one of its Beijing outlets was invested with rats"

#976 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: October 15, 2018, 10:19 PM:

974 Momentarily mis-read that as Iagomorphic with a capital I. Does that mean shaped like a beast with two backs, etc.?

#977 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: October 16, 2018, 08:24 AM:

Jeremy Leader@975

"invested with rats"

The restaurant in Ratatouille opened a branch in Beijing?

#978 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: October 28, 2018, 04:48 PM:

Today I heard someone say that at the gym she likes to use the recombinant bicycle.

So that's where all these new mutant powers come from. I did manage not to laugh, though I may have made some choking noises. Fortunately she wasn't looking at me.

#979 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: October 30, 2018, 03:35 AM:

You can take that thing apart and put it together several different ways.

#980 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: October 30, 2018, 09:44 AM:

I have a bike here with a cracked frame that's going to be recombined when I find a suitable donor frame. (58-60cm steel cyclocross w/cantis)

#981 ::: SunflowerP ::: (view all by) ::: November 06, 2018, 08:45 AM:

Seen in the wild: 'a gamete of emotions'.

#982 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: November 14, 2018, 07:08 PM:

"Yuu're about as angry as a bull in a red china shop"
from a facebook quiz

#983 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2018, 01:24 PM:

"It was one of those old-timey movie theatres with a marquis on main street."

#984 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2018, 01:26 PM:

983
And dukes in the back alley?

#985 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2018, 02:33 PM:

@983, do they offer volume viscounts?

#986 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2018, 03:04 PM:

I assume the Marquis is standing outside yelling at people to come watch the movies. Or something.

#987 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: November 15, 2018, 08:54 PM:

Xopher, how does that baron the situation?

#988 ::: Cassy B. ::: (view all by) ::: November 16, 2018, 11:01 AM:

Is the theater only open at knight?

#989 ::: oldster ::: (view all by) ::: November 18, 2018, 08:04 AM:

Heard in the wild:
"Her nephew tended to her affairs, and now that she is dead he has power of eternity."

#990 ::: Carol Kimball ::: (view all by) ::: November 21, 2018, 12:46 AM:

My mother is prevaricating between roasting vegetables at my place, roasting vegetables at my sister’s place ...

Vacillating?

#991 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: November 23, 2018, 11:40 PM:

"have a pack with the devil"

#992 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: November 24, 2018, 03:33 AM:

Well, if it's cigarettes, it makes a certain amount of sense.

#993 ::: Michael I ::: (view all by) ::: November 24, 2018, 07:13 AM:

Carol Kimball@990

No, no. Just giving the sequence of events, The mom roasts vegetables at the speaker’ s place, tells a bunch of lies, then roasts vegetables at the speaker’s sister’s place.

:-)

#994 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: November 24, 2018, 01:03 PM:

Cake Wrecks is a gold mine of such things, including entries tagged "mithspellings" and/or "Literal LoLs".

"United States Marine Crops" and "Barbarian cream", indeed.

#995 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: November 24, 2018, 05:31 PM:

"Currently, the 88 year old spends her time partitioning for animal rights and looking after several animals herself."

From a Facebook clickbait article

#996 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: November 26, 2018, 10:52 AM:

Obituaries are such a great source for truly dreadful phrases. The latest:

"entered into public servitude" at the local tax district.

#997 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: November 27, 2018, 08:31 AM:

Joel Polowin #994: Ah, Cake Wrecks, aka frosted despair in humanity. ;-) I glanced over there and found:

"Loves: nature, hunting his kids, volunteering."
Just another reminder of the importance of proper comma use, my friends.

I can't seem to link the image, but yeah. "Eats [cake], shoots, and leaves"?

#998 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: November 27, 2018, 11:39 AM:

"lightning bulb moment"

I'm actually thinking this one is a keeper.

#999 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: November 27, 2018, 12:03 PM:

998
For that moment when you're suddenly enlightened?

#1000 ::: Joel Polowin ::: (view all by) ::: November 27, 2018, 12:33 PM:

Dave Harmon @997: This, from this page. ("God bells Dillon", indeed.) My reaction is that it has to be intentional, and that it's not a "wreck", but a well-executed decoration that happens to be grotesque. Same with the Cookie Monster cake of a few days earlier.

They ran a contribution of mine a couple of years ago, the "beach vomit" cake.

#1001 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: November 27, 2018, 01:56 PM:

@999: Forcibly so, I would think.

#1002 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: November 29, 2018, 07:37 PM:

A friend posted a request to tell stories about her in hopes they would "job my memory" about them.

#1003 ::: Dave Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: November 30, 2018, 11:33 AM:

Joel Polowin #1000: Unfortunately, you're probably right. (And there goes a little more of my faith in humanity ;-) )

#1004 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: December 06, 2018, 05:00 PM:

Narrator in a novel describes his exasperation as "it set my eyes rolling around in the back of my head."

Do these folks even have beta readers?

#1005 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: (view all by) ::: December 06, 2018, 06:25 PM:

Also, this. Hire a damn copyeditor!

Unable to be together because of their repressive families, the young couple runs away together, but something incredulous happens during flight. June discovers that she has the ability to shape-shit, but she has no way of controlling her power.
Many of us have no ability to control the shapes we shit. It's an incredulous fact.

#1007 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: December 06, 2018, 06:53 PM:

"Something incredulous happens"?
A lot of us are incredulous when we read lines like these.

#1008 ::: Idumea Arbacoochee, in persona Ἀτρόπου ::: (view all by) ::: December 07, 2018, 08:22 AM:

This thread is getting too long. Let's move the conversation here.

#1009 ::: Singing Wren sees spam ::: (view all by) ::: April 29, 2019, 07:07 AM:

Spam with some bite @ 1009

#1010 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: June 27, 2019, 06:35 PM:

https://twentytwowords.com/the-most-insane-and-hilarious-typos-to-ever-exist/?utm_source=twitter-desk-pp&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pps_Funny%20Typos%20YNew%202306%20V1%20En%20-%20Desktop%20USA%20TW&pps_source=Twitter&pps_medium=WC

collected errors from around the web

#1011 ::: joann spots spam at #1012 ::: (view all by) ::: July 15, 2019, 10:28 AM:

Almost but not quite an unintentional candidate for several dreadful phrases all mucked together.

Choose:
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Even larger type, with serifs

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