Just A Few Words
"Nuclear" is pronounced "noo-klee-r" . If you pronounce this word as "noo-cue-lur" then you are "stoo-pid".
"Irregardless" is NOT a word. The word you want to use is "regardless". I'll use it in a sentence for you. "Regardless of how stupid you are, 'irregardless' is not a fucking word!"
"Hopefully" is possibly the world's most misused word. I myself make this mistake. If you are hopeful that something will happen, then you should simply say, "I am hopeful people will stop saying, 'irregardless' one day." If you want to use "hopefully" in a sentence correctly use this sentence as a guideline, "I look, hopefully, towards a day when people stop saying 'irregardless and mispronouncing 'nuclear.'"
"Finalize" does not exist in the dictionary. It is a made up word that everyone insists on using as if it actually existed in any respectable dictionary. It doesn't. Stop being a moron by using this word.
When in Chicago you may watch the Bears play (and lose) in "Soldier Field". Both "soldier" and "field" are singular entities. They are also not possessive words, as in "Soldier's Field". People in this damn town and beyond fuck that one up all the time and I'm tired of hearing it. From now on, please refer to "Soldier Field" as "The place where the Bears finalize their losing status by crashing like a noo-cue-lur bomb every game, irregardless of how much money they've spent on a new stadium."
Hopefully, you've learned something today.
;)
July 22, 2005 UPDATE!
I will concede the existence on "finalize" in a dictionary as it is actually listed in a few online dictionaries. I will not accept it as proper or even a "real word" as all of the usage notes found within these listings support it as being barely above slang and certainly not proper. It seems to be gaining acceptance for use thanks to constant misuse and that is not acceptable by my standards. It also seems to becoming acceptable because it does not have any exact synonyms. I wonder how a word that doesn't exist can have a synonym in the first place.
If it is in the OED (on paper) and you can get some points for it in Scrabble we'll talk. Until then, "finalize" still "ain't" a word.
10 Comments:
I have been champing (not chomping) at the bit to get people to understand this, irrespective (not irregardless) of the possible consequences to me (not myself).
Let's run away together. To my old stamping (not stomping) grounds.
P.S. Sublinial isn't a word either. It's subliminal.
9:29 PM
Hey...maybe we can buy a home in your old stamping grounds.
I'll call my REALITOR today! GRRRRR!!
REAL-TOR, you fuckwads!
And no matter how hard I try I can't find an "r" in "Washington".
I have never had a glass of "melk" in my life!
One day everyone will speak properly when in my presence. Perhaps it will happen on my BURFDAY!
9:45 PM
Lol....creative is the only word i can come out now...funny indeed....
11:42 PM
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
One entry found for finalize.
Main Entry: fi·nal·ize
Pronunciation: 'fI-n&l-"Iz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -ized; -iz·ing
1 : to put in final or finished form e.g. soon my conclusion will be finalized -- D. D. Eisenhower
2 : to give final approval to e.g.finalizing the papers prepared ... by his staff -- Newsweek
- fi·nal·iza·tion /"fI-n&l-&-'zA-sh&n/ noun
usage Finalize has been frequently castigated as an unnecessary neologism or as U.S. government gobbledygook. It appears to have first gained currency in Australia (where it has been acceptable all along) in the early 1920s. The U.S. Navy picked it up in the late 20s, and from there it came into widespread use. It is a standard formation (see -IZE). Our current evidence indicates it is most frequently used in government, business dealings, and child adoption; it usually is not found in belles-lettres.
7:47 AM
oh, and don't say the dictionary online is not a real dictionary
I love print more than the next guy but it's still a REAL DICTIONARY...after all, Andy...YOU are on the Internet and you're pretty real, right?
By the way: the phrase is you cannot eat your cake and have it too. For some reason someone decided to change it around to have your cake and eat it too. Of course, you can have your cake and eat it too...but what you cannot do is eat your cake and have it too which is usually what people are trying to do when they want the best of both worlds.
Have a good trip. Beso Beso
7:53 AM
Classic ex-girlfriend maneuver there. Beautiful.
There's also this listing at dictionary.com.
"Usage Note: Once considered objectionable because of its association with the language of bureaucracy, finalize is steadily gaining acceptance. In the late 1960s, 90 percent of the Usage Panel found the example finalize plans for a class reunion unacceptable; in the late 1980s, 71 percent disapproved. By 1997, only 28 percent of the Usage Panel found it unacceptable in the sentence We will send you more information once we finalize plans for the reunion. Although substitutes for finalize can be found among complete, conclude, make final, and put into final form, none of these is an exact synonym. This may be why resistance to finalize is eroding. See Usage Note at prioritize."
Notice, it is still not generally coinsidered an actual word. It is merely gaining acceptance as the "dumbnification" of the world increases. ;)
Generally, if you don't find it in the OED and can't get points for it in a good game of Scrabble, it isn't a real word.
8:02 AM
Great post! I don't know why but I found it funny.
8:55 AM
The line between language snob and creativity is sometimes thin. It's made thinner by the preponderance of electronic broadcast language and a president who doesn't speak standard English. I agree with most of your points, though. Irregardless and the incorrect myself usage do drive me NUTS. I think one of the fun features of English, though, is the playful ability to turn nouns into verbs. For people with poor visual memory, English spelling is a total crap shoot. I have total sympathy for them. And for people who get all or most of their language from TV, I say, watch more PBS
8:57 AM
I should also point out that dancing hamsters also exist online.
Show me a printed page from the OED and I'll accept the word as "real" and "proper".
Unfortunately, the usage notes from the online listings supports my contention that the word is not proper nor correct. It is merely gaining acceptance through constant misuse. "Y'all" is widely used in the southern U.S. but I don't see that becoming proper English.
As for creativity with the English language, that should be limited to the creative fields.
Shakespeare made up more than 2000 words in order to fulfill the metric requirements of iambic pentameter and the like.
Songwriters often create new words to fill their songs with rhyme and melody. Nobody gave REO any crap for "intoleration", but try to use that in a term paper or a New York Times article.
At least Rick Springfield correctly used "moot" in a song.
9:16 AM
Hell nunya's even speak true English in this country--ya'll speak good ol' 'mericanized slang... pee-shawww ;)
For the record, I tend to spell everything the European way (ise's and ou's). Try getting that shit past an editor! It's not incorrect, but it freaks the 'mericans out.
Having lived in the great Pacific Northwest of Freakland, America itself, for a good decade, I came to learn that almost all native and long-term Washingtonians (Oregonians, Idahoans and Montanans, too) pronounce Washington with that R and that comes from the land of Q-pons and soda is "pop." I digress.
2:54 PM
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