SmithWriting Blog

Just because I spend most of my time dealing with the written word (writing, editing, and proofreading) doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the spoken word. In fact, I find pronunciation just as fascinating as rhetoric, grammar, and etymology.

Recently, yourdictionary.com posted a list of the 100 most often mispronounced words and phrases in English. Here are a few that I find particularly intriguing:

Arctic (or Antarctic) mispronounced Artic (or Antartic)
Why do we leave off that first c? I think it’s because when we say Arctic correctly, we seemingly break the word in two (Arc-tic), while it’s much smoother to say Artic. But please don’t!

escape mispronounced excape
We have a tendency to form “ex” sounds where they don’t belong. Take, for instance, the terms espresso (expresso), et cetera (excetera), and especially (expecially). It hurts even to type these linguistic monstrosities.

foliage mispronounced foilage
No idea why this happens (I’m immune to this mistake because I grew up in New England, where we take great pride in our fall foliage).

regardless mispronounced irregardless
Where did this even come from? Hearing it sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.

mayonnaise mispronounced mannaise
If you’re in doubt, please just call it mayo.

prescription mispronounced perscription
OK, I admit it: I’m guilty of this one. I don’t know why, but I often mix up per- and pre-. The same concept goes for perspire (mispronounced prespire).

sherbet mispronounced sherbert
I worked in an ice cream shop in high school, so I’ve heard this one over and over again. Ironically, the shop was in Rhode Island, where most people inadvertently drop their r’s!

Filed by rebecca at 4:20 pm under For the love of words
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According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, an oxymoron is “a figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas or terms are combined.” The word comes from the Greek oxys (“sharp”) + moros (“stupid”), so “oxymoron” itself is an oxymoron (those clever Greeks).

There are hundreds of oxymora (yes, the plural of oxymoron is oxymora), ranging from the lyrical to the literal. And whenever I encounter one of these fascinating phrases in literature, advertising, or everyday language, I always pause and smile to myself in wonder.

Here’s a short list of my favorite oxymora:

Accidentally on Purpose (TV show)
controlled chaos
cruel kindness
deafening silence
freezer burn
good grief
industrial park
jumbo shrimp
live recording
Microsoft Works (office suite)
mournful optimist
pretty ugly
Quiet Riot (band)
same difference
SweeTarts (candy)
sweet sorrow (“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet)
True Lies (movie)

Have any you’d like to share? What’s your least favorite?

Filed by rebecca at 7:07 pm under For the love of words
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In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve compiled a list of English words with Irish roots. Because, although we’re not all lucky enough to be Irish, we should at least be grateful for the culture’s colorful contributions to our vocabulary:

banshee (n.) – In Irish folklore, a female spirit believed to presage, by wailing, a death in a family
1771, from Irish bean (“woman”) sídhe (“fairy”)

donnybrook (n.) – a rowdy brawl; a free-for-all
1852, from Donnybrook Fair, held annually in Donnybrook in County Dublin until 1855 and noted for its brawls

leprechaun (n.) – In Irish folklore, a fairy in the form of a little old man who can reveal a buried crock of gold to anyone who catches him
1604, from Irish leipreachán, form of lu (“small”) + chorpan (“body”)
An alternative source is leath (“half”) bhrógan (“shoer”), as the leprechaun is said to be a shoemaker by profession

shamrock (n.) – any of certain cloverlike plants with leaflets in groups of three; used as the emblem of Ireland
1571, from Irish seamróg, diminutive of seamar, meaning “clover”

smithereens (pl. n.) – small fragments or broken pieces; bits
1829, from Irish smidirin, diminutive of smiodar, meaning “little pieces”

whiskey (n.) - a liquor distilled from fermented mash of grain
1715, a shortened form of usquebaugh, from Irish uisce (“water”) beathadh (“of life”)

sources: Webster’s New World College Dictionary, thefreedictionary.com, Online Etymology Dictionary

Filed by rebecca at 7:25 am under For the love of words
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“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”

What? You didn’t get that? It’s a perfectly good sentence.

For those of you who don’t know, “buffalo” is a very versatile word. It can be a singular or plural noun (meaning any of various wild oxen, including the American bison), a proper noun (a city in western New York), or a verb (meaning to bully, baffle, or bewilder).

Basically, the sentence above describes the pecking order of buffalo in the city of Buffalo. It’s a bit easier to understand when we substitute alternate words for “buffalo”:

Buffalo bison [that] Buffalo bison bully[,] bully Buffalo bison.

(Really, it’s grammatically correct.)

And if that’s not enough for you, here’s a similar sentence starring my favorite animal: “Dogs dogs dog dog dogs.”

Know of any others? Do share!

Special thanks to my brother-in-law-to-be, lover of all things peculiar, for bringing this grammatical monstrosity to my attention.

Filed by rebecca at 6:05 pm under For the love of words
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“Honey, we’re out of bananas.”

“No problem. I’m heading to the oporopolist this afternoon.”

“Great. … Huh?”

Have you visited your neighborhood oporopolist lately? Maybe you have and you don’t even know it. You see, “oporopolist” means “fruit-seller”—and it’s my newly adopted word.

I recently took in oporopolist from savethewords.org, a Web site sponsored by Oxford Fajar, a subsidiary of Oxford University Press. Save The Words’ purpose is to keep words from being dropped from the English language because, according to the site, 90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words. That’s a pretty grim statistic for a linguaphile like me.

So, why oporopolist? Well, I was in the process of choosing between latibule (n. hiding place), quaeritate (v. to ask), and radicarian (adj. pertaining to the roots of words), when oporopolist literally yelled out at me (note to site users: turn on your speakers!). It sounded so desperate, that I just had to adopt the little guy. Plus, I love the staccato sound of “op-or-op-olist.” It’s so fun to say!

With its ransom note-like background and witty copywriting, savethewords.org is a great place to spend some time and learn something new. I especially enjoyed the “spread the word” page, which contains amusing ideas on how to keep your adopted word alive, such as wear it on a sandwich board on your lunch hour or use it as a unique name for your pet.

Although I will not be getting an “oporopolist” tattoo, per my adoption pledge, I promise to use this word in conversation and correspondence as frequently as possible.

“Anybody hungry? I’ll make a run to the oporopolist. …”

What word will you save?

Filed by rebecca at 11:54 am under For the love of words
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In my last post, I wrote about how the New Oxford American Dictionary named “unfriend” its 2009 Word of the Year. Well, apparently there is more than one “Word of the Year,” and Merriam-Webster recently announced that “admonish” tops its annual Words of the Year list. This list is based on actual user lookups to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus.

Admonish, which means “to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner,” gained popularity when Congress voted to admonish U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting “You lie!” at President Obama during a televised speech last September. Scores of people who were unfamiliar with the term went to the Internet to find its meaning.

Most of the top 10 terms can be tied to significant news events this year: The word “emaciated” made the list because so many people looked it up after it was used to describe the condition of Michael Jackson’s body after his death in June. The word “rogue” sparked a good deal of interest as a result of the November release of Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue.” And the word “philanderer” was looked up frequently due to news stories about indiscretions by Rep. Mark Sanford and talk show host David Letterman (and it’s probably still being looked up a lot these days thanks to Tiger Woods).

Here are the 10 most looked-up words on merriam-webster.com this year:

1. admonish (verb): to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner
2. emaciated (adjective): wasted away physically
3. empathy (noun): the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
4. furlough (noun): a leave of absence from duty granted especially to a soldier
5. inaugurate (verb): to induct into an office with suitable ceremonies
6. nugatory (adjective): of little or no consequence
7. pandemic (adjective): occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population
8. philanderer (noun): of a man: to have casual or illicit sex with a woman or with many women; especially: to be sexually unfaithful to one’s wife
9. repose (verb): to lay at rest
10. rogue (adjective): resembling or suggesting a rogue elephant especially in being isolated, aberrant, dangerous, or uncontrollable

Filed by rebecca at 10:17 pm under For the love of words
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This week, the New Oxford American Dictionary announced its 2009 Word of the Year: “unfriend.”

Unfriend, a verb, means “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”

The choice points to the prevalence of social networking in our culture. In fact, a lot of the new words considered for Word of the Year grew out of our collective obsession with being connected to our networks.

For example, take “hashtag” (a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets), “intexticated” (distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle), and every tween’s parents’ nightmare, “sexting” (the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone).

Some considerations come from current issues in politics and the economy, such as “death panel” (a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed) and “funemployed” (taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests), while others, like “deleb” (a dead celebrity) and “tramp stamp” (a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman), tend toward the frivolous.

I wonder what’s in store for our vocabulary in 2010 …

Filed by rebecca at 9:09 pm under For the love of words
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Ah, alliteration. One of my most loved literary devices. Whether placed in poetry or prose, alliteration is like music to my ears.

Also known as “head rhyme,” alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds at the beginning of words—or in stressed syllables—in close succession. Although modern alliteration primarily uses consonants, certain literary traditions, such as Old English and Old Norse verse, use vowel sounds.

Alliteration has long been used for poetic effect. The first verse of Robert Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a great example:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Not only is alliteration melodic, it also highlights words and makes certain phrases stick in your head. That’s why marketers often employ this stylistic device in their copy. Take, for instance, the following taglines: “We’ll leave a light on for you” (Motel 6) and “Every kiss begins with Kay” (Kay Jewelers). They’re not easy to forget, are they?

The same goes for names of restaurants (Dunkin’ Donuts), TV shows (“Sesame Street”), music groups (Beastie Boys), books (“Where the Wild Things Are”), and movies (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”). You get the picture.

As a copywriter, I often employ alliteration in my headings, subheads, and throughout my copy. Clients appreciate it because it connects certain words and phrases that they’re trying to emphasize to their audience.

Speaking of reaching a certain audience … few are as good at this as the late, great Dr. Seuss. His use of alliteration is legendary—and it helps teach generations of kids to read. Here’s one of my favorite alliterative phrases from “Dr. Seuss’s ABC”:

Many mumbling mice
are making
midnight music
in the moonlight …

mighty nice

Now try getting that out of your head!

Filed by rebecca at 2:31 pm under For the love of words
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According to the National Institute of Mental Health, upwards of 18 percent of Americans suffer from phobias. A phobia (from the Greek “phobos,” meaning “to fear”) is an intense and irrational fear of a situation or thing. There are hundreds of identified phobias out there, but these few are sure to send shivers down your spine:

Astraphobia: fear of thunder and lightning
(from the Greek “astrap,” meaning “lightning”)
My dog, Riley, has debilitating astraphobia. Poor girl, she pants, shakes, and hides in the closet when a storm rolls in.

Xenophobia: fear of foreigners or strangers
(from the Greek “xenos,” meaning “foreigner”)

Paraskavedekatriaphobia: fear of Friday the 13th
I covered this one in a previous post on Friday the 13th.

Ichthyophobia: fear of fish
(from the Greek “ichthys,” meaning “fish”)
I have a mild case of this phobia, thanks to my older sister, who dumped me in a school of fish in a pond while camping when we were young.

Somniphobia: fear of sleep
(from the Latin “somnus,” meaning “sleep”)

Nomophobia: fear of being out of mobile phone contact
(an abbreviation for “no-mobile-phone”)
A British study found that nearly 53 percent of mobile phone users become anxious when they are out of contact. Seriously?!?

Phasmophobia: fear of ghosts
(from the Greek “phasma,” meaning “apparition”)

Ornithophobia: fear of birds
(from the Greek “ornis,” meaning “bird”)
Just ask Tippi Hedren about this one …

Ephebiphobia: fear of youth
(from the Greek “ephebos,” meaning “adolescent”)

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: fear of the number 666 (Satan’s number)
(from the Greek “hex,” meaning “six”)
Personally, I have a fear of pronouncing this word!

So, what are you afraid of?

Filed by rebecca at 5:12 pm under For the love of words
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Last week I posted about letter and e-mail closings. So this week, on Steph’s recommendation, I’m starting at the beginning and posting about—you guessed it—letter and e-mail openings.

Granted, there are not as many opening salutations as there are closings. But there are a few to choose from, and some are more appropriate than others, depending on the context of your correspondence.

From the formal to the friendly, there’s a greeting for all your communications:

Business letters and e-mails
Dear Mr. Smith:
Dear Ms. Johnson:
Dear Mrs. Jones:
Only use Mrs. if you’re sure the recipient is married and prefers to be addressed this way; otherwise, use Ms.

Dear Jane:
First names are acceptable, but only if you’ve previously met the recipient—and even then, you may want to err on the side of formality.
Dear Chris Brown:
If you do not know the recipient’s gender, use their full name (but always attempt to find out their gender first).

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
Dear Colleagues:
To Whom It May Concern:
Use this as a last resort and only if you’re unable to find out anything about the recipient(s).
Dear Sir or Madam:
Use sparingly; this one has become a bit dated.

Friendly letters and e-mails
Good day,
Greetings,
Hello,
Hey!
Hiya,
Hi,
Hi there,
Howdy,
Hidey ho!
What up,
Yo,
Dude!

In general, less formal salutations take a comma, while formal ones take a colon.

Filed by rebecca at 4:49 pm under For the love of words
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