Thursday, April 03, 2008

my bruddies will prolly enjoy this

this is a fun article on the way people sometimes say words wrong on purpose -- to be funny, to make fun of other people, or to make fun of themselves. i do this all the time: the examples that pop to mind are the ubiquitous "internets," saying "prolly" instead of "probably," "bruddy" instead of "brother," using the "french" pronunciation of the store"target,"and pronouncing many things "in the voice of homer simpson." i wonder, first of all, how irritating this habit is. or how much a person would have to include it in everyday speech before he or she started to drive everyone crazy. and the other thing i wonder (so does jason kottke) is whether this exists in other languages?

7 comments:

Adam said...

That IS a fun arcticle! I especially like the extensive qualifications (e.g., "'beeswax,' which is a real word meaning the stuff with which bees make their honeycombs") and the fact that Perzackly and prezactly are in The Oxford English Dictionary.

David said...

Yes, this is great! I think it would be interested to chronicle the family lexicon...

Anonymous said...

awesome. john is a big fan of "IRregardless" and we both used to enjoy calling the "pheasant lane mall" the "pleasant lane mall" and then act really surprised when people correct us. it's some sort of sickness, isn't it?

(suposubly is another fun one...)

David said...

I like to pluralize stuff for fun ("Want to go to Paneras?").

Liz Woodbury said...

oh yeah, how about "linens n' such" for "linens n' things"?

Liz Woodbury said...

just thought of another one -- glove department, instead of glove compartment.

Liz Woodbury said...

and 'mote control. for remote control. that drives bean and boo crazy, but not as much as when i refer to it as "the hoopus."