Ok, I am weird. Words are so fascinating to me. What cracks me up is the way people misuse language - making up their own words, mispronouncing words, and being generally redundant or peculiar. Then, there's my quirk of having certain words cause me to shudder. Whatever it is, I just don't like the sound of some. So here are some interesting ones for your reading pleasure.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Weird Words in General

These are just words that cause me to shudder whenever I hear them. I know I am strange, but here's a little list. There are others from other people on here.

moist
drapes
slacks
trousers
panties
folks
prompt - Scott D.
pamper
doily
leak, leaky - James M.
chum
pal
cram
flop
sack
slough
squirt
squat
thrust (put these together and that is one horrific sounding exercise – a squat thrust!)
thong

Strange Sayings, Redundancies, and Other Oddities

People do say peculiar things from time to time. Here are some things I have noticed.

"I have a small little problem..."
"Asking God to lead, guide and direct..." Isn't that the same thing?
"The reason is because..." Do we really need the because?
"That's a whole 'nother thing..." How about another?

Ending any sentence with the word "so" is now a common practice. I am going to the store and will be back in an hour... soooo.. What is that?!

Starting sentences with "anyways..."

It's not I could care less... it is I couldn't care less. This is one my friend, Dave Pacheco, always reminded me of.

I could of went to the beach instead of staying home. Instead of could have.

Mis-pronunciations

These are wrong pronunciations of different words. I know there are plenty of these out there, but these are just a few. Please feel free to submit more!

acrost (instead of across)
chest (instead of chess)
nuclear: new-kyuh-ler vs. new-clear
interesting: in-tresting vs in-ter-esting or even inner-esting.
mature: ma-tyoor vs ma-chur
familiar: fer-mil-yer
sherbet: people pronouce this word as sher-bert, but it should be sor-bay.

Made-up Words

These type of words are just caused by people who truly do not know these are not words, or those who are too lazy to care. I have noticed a growing trend of just throwing a "ness" on the end of a word and thinking that is legitimate.

comfortness - did you mean comfort?
comfortability - again... did you mean comfort?
grammarically - yikes... grammatically?
irregardless - how about regardless? This one is a "real word," but definitely not preferred.
uncomfortableness - how about discomfort?
spiritualness - spirituality might work there.
sublinial - subliminal
hecticness - this might be real, but it just sounds awkward
amplitheater - while it's true that a theatre is designed to amplify sound...amphitheatre is the word you wanted.
misunderestimate - this is a Bushism. I think he was going for underestimate.
embetterment - another Bushism. Perhaps betterment?
strategery - my favorite Bushism. I use it often in jest.

Please feel free to comment and we will add words to the list!