Dead Buff Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 "What I've always hated was the weather forecast, "Partly cloudy, chance of rain." What kind of wimpy, failure to commit weather forecast is that? If it's almost totally overcast but there's a break in the clouds anywhere, they're right. If it's a beautiful day with one wispy cloud somewhere in the bowl of heaven, they're right. If it rains, they're right. If it doesn't rain, they're right. Jesus wept." Quote seen on an imprinted little notepad in 1994: "Meteorologist: Someone who tells us what kind of weather we're already having." Thread drift: Weather forecasters are ALWAYS 100% correct with the forecast, its just the date that they got wrong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Pinto Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a compacted conciseness, a clarified comprehensibility, a coalescent cogency, and a concatenated consistency. Eschew obfuscation and all conglomeration of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectations. Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and voracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolificacy, and vain vapid verbosity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent!! ("Be brief and don't use big words") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dead Buff Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 ...but then you stand a chance of failing your thesis.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 Shoot these targets from this box...shoot these targets thru this port.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 "babblement"..... I'm going to remember that one........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 This thread reminded me of one of my favorites from Strunk and White's Elements of Style.(I know I'm a loser to quote someone else's work... but hopefully some will find it as funny as I do.) I thought I was the only person owning a copy of this book. I feel so much better. It's like finding a support group. Dangling modifiers make me a bit crazy as do sentence fragments and split infinitives (thank you Star Trek - to BOLDLY go). The worst mangling comes from those with a touch of the stomach flu. You always hear, "I'm nauseous." The proper use would be to say, "I feel nauseated." To say "I'm nauseous" is to express how you make other people sick to their stomachs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 I'm sure a number of you tech-types out there are already DNRC members. But for those that aren't, I thought I'd share some of Scott Adams' email newsletter "Dogbert's New Ruling Class." He always includes a segment known as "True tales of Induhviduals" who mangle every day phrases. For some reason, they always involve body parts and animals. Here is a sampling: Quotes that sound painful: "Can I pick your ear?" "I've got an ace up my hole." "I don't want to shoot myself in the hip." "I've been thinking about giving that some thought." Critter-related quotes: "I've been running around like a chicken with my legs cut off!" "The monkey is in their court." "There's more than one way to screw a cat!" "That really grinds my goat." "This guy is trying to pull the wool over the donkey's ass, and that is not where the wool goes." "I'm so angry I could eat a horse." "They're throwing us a blind herring." "You have to shoot where the fish are barking." Mutated Metaphors: "We'll kill two rocks in one basket." "They're so busy they don't have two minutes to rub together." "Well, that really puts a wrinkle in my ointment." "That was a real notch in his feather." "I'm going to watch you like the back of a hawk." Possibly naughty quotes: "That guy beats to a different drum!" "Whatever rubs your boat!" "We gotta get our soup and nuts together." (Ouch!) "I'm sure he was drunk, he was driving erotically." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 The worst mangling comes from those with a touch of the stomach flu. You always hear, "I'm nauseous." The proper use would be to say, "I feel nauseated." To say "I'm nauseous" is to express how you make other people sick to their stomachs. Did you note that I used "nauseous" correctly in the raw fish topic? I deserve a gold star! While I'm at it, we should remind ourselves that "stomach flu," (aka gastroenteritis) is not actually flu at all. Influenza affects the respiratory system, not the plumbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 I'm so angry I could eat a horse. Must be French. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 The worst mangling comes from those with a touch of the stomach flu. You always hear, "I'm nauseous." The proper use would be to say, "I feel nauseated." To say "I'm nauseous" is to express how you make other people sick to their stomachs. actually, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book...ary&va=nauseous Main Entry: nau·seous Pronunciation: 'no-sh&s, 'no-zE-&s Function: adjective 1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING 2 : affected with nausea or disgust - nau·seous·ly adverb - nau·seous·ness noun usage- Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DogmaDog Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 Interesting, and nauseous at the same time. "I feel badly" is still nauseating. DD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 Just because enough people use it that way doesn't make it right! G Gordon Liddy covered the nausea thing on his radio show one day. I'll stick with definition #1 and continue to use the far more correct "nauseated" when feeling nausea. I maintain that people are nauseous when they claim to be "nauseous" because the usage induces nausea in me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 just because a guy on the radio said it was wrong doesnt mean it is wrong. after all, al franken says quite a bit on the radio... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMC Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 "OLD SCHOOL" Used by too many people new to some activity (but mostly heard be me in the car and motorcycle buiding hobby) who use new parts, materials and modern styles and them proclaim its "old school" because they think it will make them different somehow from the thousands of other builder producing the same carbon copy crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtm Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 " Walla" is just plain wrong. The propper mispronunciation of this French favoite should be Voeyela ( voila ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 What irks the living hell out of me is people who always preface any word beginning with the letter "h" with the word "an" instead of "a". What rose this to the surface recently was watching X-Men 2 on DVD and listening to Patrick Stewart doing his voiceover intro, playing the high-level genius, extremely well-educated Professor Xavier, stating, "....it's an historical fact..." Jesus wept. Okay, here it is, folks: the rule on whether or not a word starting with "h" is preceded by "a" or "an" depends on whether or not the "h" is silent. In other words, does the word sound like it starts with a vowel or consonant. An honor. A historical. The only people who say "an historical" are those who want to sound impressive but don't really understand the rules of grammar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalker Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 " Walla" is just plain wrong. The propper mispronunciation of this French favoite should be Voeyela ( voila ). Kurt, where is your hard-(l)earned italian? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 I wish to purchase and learn to play an harmonica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 And who could blame you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 Oh, and HERE'S one no one's mentioned: We have a relatively new co-newsanchor on one of the local TV stations who--while being a very good anchor--keeps pronouncing the definite and indefinite articles "the" and "a" as "thee" and "ay" every single time he uses the words!!!!!! It's driving me absolutely whacko! Whacko, I say!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 Rhino, wanting to be like Stevie Wonder????? need some really dark glasses and corn rowed hair... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 Oh, that's gonna happen ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted October 12, 2004 Share Posted October 12, 2004 Cool! Post pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warpspeed Posted October 12, 2004 Share Posted October 12, 2004 I hate it when the say " It wasn't as close as the score indicates". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paule Posted October 26, 2004 Share Posted October 26, 2004 "word" - perfect illustration of the total failure of our public education system. not only can graduates no longer read or write correctly, now even basic speech skills are lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now