I need some maturity leave to recover from my cerebral parsley

Chester Drawers – Chester Drawers is not a person. It's not the name of the actor in the movie to the left. Chester Drawers is also not furniture, despite what you might say when describing a dresser. A chest of drawers is what Americans commonly refer to as a dresser. It holds clothing, it’s three words. (Submitted by my sis Anna)

Two of the best pieces of information about chester drawers and others can be found in these two articles by Allison Burkette: The Story of Chester Drawers and The Lion, The Witch, And The Armoire: Lexical Variation In Case Furniture Terms.

Cerebral Parsley – This conjures all kinds of images in my head but mostly I think of a person with a giant wig of parsley, and thus, cerebral parsley. The correct word is of course palsy and it’s possible that the person’s tongue, from whence this utterance came, was suffering from some palsy. (Submitted by the wife)

Let’s Go Raise the Flagpole – Spoken by the co-worker who gave us “train of events”; comes this wonderfully vigorous euphemism: let’s go raise the flagpole. Of course, the common phrase is “let’s send this up the flagpole”, referring of course to a flag. The original statement from the 50’s "let's run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it" means "to present an idea tentatively and see whether it receives a favorable reaction." I’d like to think that this person meant the idea was going to take so much work to get across to management that we not only needed to run it up the flagpole, but we needed to raise the flagpole first. Of course, that would be giving this person way too much credit. (Submitted by S.H.)

Smores & a Barn Fire – The beach is a fine place. One can swim there, play in the sand, or just relax. Often groups go there in the evening and build giant bon fires. They roast hot dogs and often make smores by melting chocolate and putting it betwixt some graham crackers. They do not, as a recent church member declared, go to the beach for smores and a barn fire. While still tasty, this event would not doubt be marked by emergency response, the 10 o’clock news, and some hefty fines. (Submitted by G.K.)

Maturity Leave – My wife saw this in an advertisement for a job. It said "position is a temporary assignment for a 6-month maturity leave". I’ve heard of paternity leave and maternity leave, but never maturity leave. Where was this when I graduated from college? Can you imagine your employer giving you six months off to mature? Paid?! I can think of a few cases where this would apply and plan to use this term sparingly at key moments in conversations with co-workers who are apt to complain about some annoying minutiae they’ve encountered. I imagine it would go something like this:

Co-Worker: “First the copier, now the water filter, I hate this office!”

Me: “You know, you should check the benefits section of the company intranet, I think they have something new called maturity leave, I think you’d really benefit from it.”

Soverinity – This was submitted as a comment to a previous post from my friend P.B., but I thought I’d point it out. The real word is sovereignty, pronounced sov-rin-tee. Don't go adding sylables willy nilly wherever you want or you might end up in a forthcoming blog post, Mispronunciations That Vix Us 3.0.

From the "Best" Minds of America’s Youth

My wife teaches online courses and just between us, most of these people are not the cream of the crop. The following are a few examples of their IQ and or writing acumen.

Essay Statement: "When describing these two animals, cats and dogs, they have a lot of similarities. They both were masticated from wild animals." (They of course meant domesticated, but extra credit for coming up with something imaginative, if not correct.)

Essay Statement: "Bare with me". (Unpossible, you’re writing is clearly unbareable.)

Essay Statement: “In fact, California is home to the highest peak in the continental United States, Mount Whitey.” (Which is opposite Mt. Blacky of course. They meant Mount Whitney.)

Essay Statement: "This statement is over exaggerated." (Clearly)

Essay Title: "People That Are In Love To Ones That Aren’t" (My head hurts trying to understand this; I’m taking a mulligan on my typical annotation. Ah heck, I'm all in. Clearly this person was referring to people who are in love with someone who doesn't feel the same way, about them. They are the aren't, and the writer is the people.

And haven't we all been the aren't at sometime in our life? Haven't we all been the people? If you're the aren't, it's an awkward position, and this person has no doubt had some awkwardness in their life, as evidenced by that essay title.)

And finally, seen by the wife in a Craigslist Advertisement: We are seeking “13” people for our new San Juan Wellness Center opening September 15th, 2010. (Which begs the question, so how many people do you really need?)

The train of events clearly shows that we do not meet mustard

The Proof is the Pudding (Contributed by S.H.)

This phrase dates back at least to the 1600’s with perhaps the most famous usage coming via Cervantes in Don Quixote. Most sources quote the following "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." Meaning that the true value or quality of something can only be judged when it's put to use. The meaning is often summed up as "results are what count." While over time this has come to be abbreviated to “the proof is in the pudding” or simply “the proof in pudding” (retaining the original meaning), I can find no reference to the term “the proof is the pudding.” This phrase does not retain the same meaning as the original. It seems to imply rather that the result is the proof. Of course, if that’s what you wanted to say then don’t bastardize the age old saying just say the proof is the result. Knowing this co-worker, they were trying to say it correctly and just had a synaptical short, something of a regular occurrence for them.

Prounce

A horse can prance. A cat can pounce. The former neighbor of my sister Anna was always telling her that her dog Lucy was “such a prouncer.” You think that’s bad? Wait until you read about unquenchionable. People and their made up words, making this blog possible, thank you people. I guess I am prone to prounce on the misspoken word, omagosh I’m such a prouncer!

Spelt

Not only did you spell it wrong but you pronounced spell wrong, as in “dear you spelt that word wrong.” Spelt sounds like a small fish good only for bait, e.g., “when we chum the water with spelt our catch numbers go waaaaay up. It really nicens up our paycheck.”

Nicen – Not to be confused with the product Nice N’ Easy, or the Nicene Creed, I can only find a definition of this word on the very authoritative Wiktionary (note saracasm) as to become or make nicer and used in the phrase “nicen up”. Let me try this for a minute. “Wow, those rims really nicen up your ride.” “Lemme just run inside and nicen up before we bounce.” “I only wish that my charity would lead to the ongoing nicening of America.” Nope, that’s not working for me.

Unquenchionable

I heard this on the radio on the way to work the other day which caused my head to tilt slightly to the side and upward, a single eyebrow raised, as I pondered the potential etymology of this word. Un-quench-tionable…………hmnnnn……something that cannot be quenched…………..something that cannot be questioned………….something that…..this guy on the radio just made up. It had something to do with George Steinbrenner and his love or desire for the game. I tried to make it work in a sentence, I failed. (See also my mad MS Paint skillz)

Train of Events (Contributed by S.H.)

Choo choo! The event trains comin’ baby! We are all familiar with the phrase “chain of events”, a number of actions and their effects that are contiguous and linked together. But train of events I’ve never heard of before. Lets try to make this work. Train of Events: A series of events that are linked together and travel together on a defined path with a predictable origin and destination. This train may be used to flummox high school math students when used in conjunction with another train of events traveling from the opposite direction at a different speed with a different start time.” The guy that uttered this phrase sits in an office next to the woman who has been immortalized on this blog with the use of “fasterness” and the communistic trifecta (see older posts). Maybe they are rubbing off on each other?

Meet Mustard

This is funny without clarification because the use of mustard with “meet” makes you think of a hotdog or hamburger. The originator however did not have this in mind. This person said that we need to make sure our work “meets mustard”. Muster, it’s muster, not mustard. Muster means to assemble or summon (troops, etc.), as for inspection, roll call, or service. So they meant to say that our work needs to meet a certain standard upon inspection. What they said was our work needs to meet mustard, a condiment.

Perscribe (Contributed by G.K.)

I left this last for a reason, but first, my take. You can prescribe something, mostly commonly medication. You cannot perscribe anything. You’re free to perspire while being a scribe even (see photo of scribe in hoodie), but you shan’t perscribe. When this was brought to my attention by a co-worker the following conversation took place consisting entirely of blog related terminology.

Co-worker: perscribe? how does one perscribe something....

Me: the proof is the pudding my friend

Co-worker: whoa, all that in the kitchen sink?

Me: It's unquenchionable

Me: a train of events you cannot deny

Co-worker: good thing he's just an acquaintenance

If you don’t hyper-down people are gonna come outta the woodworks!

Overneath – Really? Overneath? As in over something and underneath it at the same time? As in the English language is over your head and beneath you at the same time? Hold something up, anything, fruit, a stapler, a small child. Now with your other hand, try to describe how something is overneath it. (Note: If you chose small child please do this over a soft surface.) You will fail! There is no such thing! I remembered this picture of myself trying to explain something and thought it a fitting illustration. My friend Josh Burgner's reaction says it all. Submitted by my sis Anna.

Abulence “aa-boo-lence” – I’ve heard of the am-buh-lam (ebonics for Ambulance), but never until recently had I heard of an abulence. Now I know saying the entire word can be tedious, am-byoo-lence, but if we’re going to start dropping slabbles from words just for convenience could we at least start with less important words? I mean, think about if you’re injured and cry out for an abulence and nobody responds because they have no idea what you are talking about and think you’re a crazy person? [Injured bicyclist] - “Help!! I need an abulence, someone help me!” [Passing couple] “Can you believe that honey? Crackheads in our neighborhood, unbelievable, I hope it rains on that guy.” Submitted by my sis Deb.

Hyper-Down – A classic from parents and older siblings alike indicating you are being too hyper and need to settle down or calm down. This is often utilized when settle and calm down have become ineffective and you are hoping that by conjoining these two words you might access the calming portion of the subjects nervous system. Alas, for some of us no amount of verbal persuasion could temper the affect of six packs of pop-rocks. Submitted by my sis Deb.

Hypocritical Oath – A student in one of my wife’s online critical thinking courses used this in a paper about the death penalty. Unfortunately, it was not a play on words. It would have been great if it was, something like “Doctors who administer the lethal doses have apparently set aside the hypocritical oath they took.” I would award bonus points for that myself. Sadly, without knowledge of this unintentional pun their only bonus is getting on this blog. Submitted by the wife.

Fasterness – If you’ve read some of the earlier posts on this blog you might remember the “communistic trifecta” where a co-worker said something to the affect of “supposably (1) there’s this communistic (2) influence in the book of Revelations(3! That's it folks! She's done it! The communistic trifecta!)”. Well, just this week she uttered another blog worthy sentence something along the lines of “In the future I’d like to accomplish that task with more fasterness.” Fasterness? That’s not even remotely close to being a real word. People say supposably and Revelations all the time, but fasterness? What is the antonym, slowerness? “I should probably drive with more slowerness to avoid getting into an accident.” See the level of rediculosity? Submitted by Amanda R.

Aquaintenences – Earlier we discussed the trimming of syllables from words with abulence and here we have a minister telling his congregation to reach out to their aquain-ten-nen-ces, clearly a case of the word cloak. When you’re not sure about a word, how to pronounce it, or perhaps what its plural form is, you just sprinkle in a little something extra to “cloak” your misgivings. Heck, you may even get it right. In this case, it was wrong, and making things worse, he used it about seven times. The veil was rent, the way opened, and light shined on this word cloak. Submitted by Gene K.

People will come outta the woodworks – Woodworks are wood-like surfaces that spray water whenever you stare at them for a very long time. No but seriously, there’s no such thing. An idiom, “come out of the woodwork” means to emerge from obscurity or a place of seclusion. To come outta the woodworks, well, I guess if you had a giant wood structure or sculpture that people could go into or out of then you could use this statement and it would be correct, otherwise, drop the “s” people.

Everything in the kitchen sink – Another idiom that, apparently used with more fasterness than their intellect could handle, was just slightly modified with an “in” where a “but” should be, completely and utterly modifying the meaning. Unfortunately, this new idiom is understood to mean the dishes, the food pieces, some bacteria, and a few cleaning utensils.

Over Empowered – Co-workers, an endless stream of nonsense. This was uttered in the following context, no further anecdote is required. “The pickles totally over-empower this sandwich.”

Overheard, Written Down, Blogged

The following statements were made at engineering related meetings that I attended. I did not make any of the following statements, but I did write them down. They may have made sense in context, but I'm fairly certain that even in context some were senseless. Here they are in no particular order, overheard, written down, blogged.

In lieu of saying "a topic off the top of our head", this person conjugated the two into:"Off the topic of our head....."

Instead of "I'm not a big fan of" and/or "I'm not fond of" - we get this gem:"I'm not a big fond of...."

Noting to a committee that we wouldn’t be having a meeting the following month this speaker confidently announced: "There will be a darkness in March.” (Eclipse maybe?)

Others that may or may not have made sense in context:

“We need to start laying this out in real.”

“We need to get the best bang for built.”

“We have to delay putting off the procrastination.”

“We would like an analysis of the impacts in our vin-cinity.”

“We have to draw a sign in the land.”

“We’ve gone back and forth on that many many a times.”

“That’s like a cheeseburger on a treadmill.”

"We've been gotten some new direction."

“In a slow economy people are looking to batten down the hatchets.”

Others that sounded wrong but turned out to be real words:

“We need to start calendaring all of these meetings.”

“Part of the process will be to show the disbenefits.”

Misprunciations That Vix Us 2.0

This subject was covered in a previous blog, but with so many new words being mispronounced I have to post “Misprunciations That Vix Us 2.0”

Masonairy – Submitted via e-mail from a reader, this person is in the construction business and has to listen to people constantly refer to masonry (the craft or occupation of a mason, work constructed by a mason, esp. stonework: the crumbling masonry of ancient walls.) as masonairy. This isn’t fluffed up masonry, or even puffy looking masonry. It’s not a new construction technique whereby air is injected into the masonry thereby making it less stable. This is a common problem with humans. We hear a word like masonry, but somehow the connection from the eardrum to the brain, or perhaps the brain itself, just doesn’t quite function correctly, and we don’t hear something correctly and from thence on mispronounce it, even when we hear it correctly pronounced over and over by others. It’s amazing how the ear or brain can keep malfunctioning over and over. Users of masonairy have all the symptoms of the disease known as Suffixitis.

Revelant (Relevant): I’m reveling in the fact that coworker just used this today because it’s relevant to this blog. It is not however revelant to this blog because revelant is not a word, except to one of my coworkers. I can only shake my head on this one, could it be they suffer from ulsdexia (dyslexia)?

Pronunciation [rel-uh-vuhnt] –adjective - Bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark - Origin: 1550–60; < class="ital-inline">relevant- (s. of relevāns), special use of L, prp. of relevāre to raise, lift up.

Irregardlessly (Regardless): I think you can only pray for people who use this word. Irregardless is bad enough, but irregardlessly? Why not irregardlesslyness? On the other hand, if you can get some points using this during Scrabble, then you might get a “well played” from me, unless you’re playing with people from a concussion support group (“Hi my name is……..*looks down at name tag* Bill! – Group: “Hiiiiii ……..*group squints to see name on tag*..Bill!”), yeah that group.

Reckuhnize (Recognize): Please reckuhnize there is a hard G in this word and pronounce it, please, the word is reck-cog-nize, not reck-uh-nize. I do reckuhnize that this could be the bastard child of the phrase generally associated with the southeastern United Stated “I reckon”.

Innividual (Individual): I have no problem with you being your own person, unique, distinct; but this doesn’t give you the right to ignore the letter D in this word. Besides, innividual sounds just a little, well, inbred. Like you squeezed two words together that just shouldn’t be, like cousins.

Bohemoth (Behemoth): I have a friend who’s got a real problem with this word. He understands that it starts with a soft buh followed by heemuth, he just doesn’t agree with it. To him it should be pronounced BO-heemuth, partly because it’s describing any creature or thing of monstrous size or power and therefore I guess deserves a strong BOH at the beginning, whatever, blog worthy.

Eltz, Eltzwhere (Else, Elsewhere): Warning, once you are aware of this debauchery it may haunt you. Like some noxious fad that irks you whenever you see it (UGG boots come to mind) this word will do the same in its many incarnations like auditory nails on the chalkboard. There is no t in this word, there is no z in this word, it’s basically a L sound followed by a S sound, Ellllssssss. No T, no Z. And when you confound this egregious disrespect for the English language by saying eltzwhere? Well, then you might find yourself reading about yourself on a blog when someone sends you a link....yeah you, reader, they’re talking about you.

Superseeded – Now I admit, superseeded may have plenty of applicable uses, perhaps as two words or hyphenated. If you are however referring, say in an official document, to the fact that some of your work is superseded by some other work, and you type in superseeded, then I might have to object, and make obtuse references to agriculture or fertility to make fun of you. Contributed by S.H.

Siddown – Like cojoined twins, these words need an operation. Sit and down should not be conjugated siddown. If you have a dog named Sid and need to tell it “down” then saying “siddown!” may be acceptable, otherwise, not so much.

PreDaytor/Accoomulate/Rellowcate – In an apparent attempt to change common pronunciations of the English language a co-worker has taken some very common words and just butchered them. This isn’t British English, Old-English, some attempt at modernization, or even some attempt at “renewance” (coming soon in Wurds That Just R’unt 2.0), it’s just plain manglage. In referring to the movie Predator (with Arnold) the person said “just like in the movie preee-daytor”. It took his fellow co-workers about 5 minutes to determine what movie he was “act tuh lee” talking about (yep, same person). He’s also been known to describe items as “acoomoolating” (accumulate) and/or of having to “rellowcate” (relocate) items. I will not stand for it! Well, okay, I’ll stand for it, but I’ll also blog about it.

Coming Soon!: Wurds That Just R-unt 2.0

If you enjoy words as much as I do, or somewhat less, you'll be sure to enjoy "The Superior Persons Book of Words, Volumes I, II, and III", by Peter Bowler. Small easy to read books made up of funny words with even funnier anecdotes about their usage, much like this blog, I hope. I own the set myself.

All-Timers Gave Me An Outer Body Experience

All-timers Disease – This is a disease that you have all-the-time that causes you to mispronounce words like nuclear, Alzheimer’s, and interesting. This shouldn’t be confused with Alzheimer’s the disease, which is very serious and affects millions. Unfortunately All-timers affects millions too. Contributed by G.K.

Outer Body Experience – This is really cool, it’s like having an out of body experience on the outside of your body! See, an out of body experience is when you feel like your consciousness is outside your body, and an outer body experience is when you feel like your body is outside your body! Amazing! Someone at the office used this term. Contributed by S.H.

Versa Visuh – Vice Versa or vis-à-vis are common terms meaning with the order changed-with the relations reversed. Switching the order of these words and saying Versa Visuh (pronounced Versa Vice-uh) has no meaning whatsoever and who wants their words to mean nothing? By the way, if you are one of those people saying vice versa backwards and wrong as Versa Visuh to be cute? Stop it, stop it right now, just stop.

Main Entry: vice ver·sa, Function: adverb, Etymology: Latin, Date: 1601 : with the order changed : with the relations reversed : conversely

Anywayz – This word is just like irregardless. Some people are just uncomfortable with regardless and anyway, they feel there is something lacking, some hidden meaning not expressed with the word as-is, so they add “irre” and “z” to perfectly normal functioning words. And then one day they find this blog, and they’re confused, and they look the words up, and they conjure up memories across their entire lives and realize they’ve said irregardless and anywayz perhaps millions of times, and they pause, they reflect, and there is loss.

Over Indulge – I’m a big fan of indulging, sometimes I over eat, and yes, I suppose it is possible to over indulge. See the problem lies in the fact that the definition of indulge, by definition, means that you’re overdoing it, you’ve gone too far, you just kept going when you were satisfied, maybe you just kept going and going, like this sentence. See, I could have said a lot less and expressed myself just as well, just like you could have used indulge, instead of over indulge, but you didn’t. You took too much and you used too many words to describe it, just like this explanation of over indulge.

Coming soon: Mispronunciations That Vix Us 2.0 and Words That Just R'unt 2.0

I'd also like to point out some great sources for words and the English language:

www.thewonderofwhiffling.com
www.doubletongued.org

I'm trying to make a mute point

I’m trying to make a mute point – A mute point (argument, hypothesis, etc.), as opposed to a moot point (obsolete), is a point made in complete silence, and of course doesn’t actually exist. “What? Are you trying to convey something? Why are you staring at me intently but not speaking?” See also – a moo point, a cow’s opinion, it doesn’t matter, its moo. – Contributed by S.H., K.T., and Joey from friends.

Echo-System – When a person does not know how to pronounce ecosystem (ee-ko-system) they refer of course to the spelunkers dream, the echo-system. A series of caverns, caves, or otherwise creeeeeepy passageways that when spoken into return your voice to you at the same volume in perpetuity for up to one minute. I of course made this up, made this up, made this up.....

Receptioner – There is a woman at my work, she gives the receptionist breaks, and when there is someone waiting at the front desk, or a package has arrived, she will get on the PA system as say something like “Will Dauber, please come to the receptioner desk, Will, please come to the receptionist desk.” She will actually use receptioner and receptionist in the same announcement. If she was consistent we could deal with it. I did determine that receptioner means reception in Danish, as in to have a reception, with food stuff and such. Perhaps she’s Danish? Its possible, but the prevailing theory is that she thinks that a receptionist in action is a receptioner and we wouldn’t surprised if out of the office she tells people, utilizing a French accent of course, that she’s a ree-cept-shuhnair! – Contributed by K.T.

A Good Number? A good number of people were held at gunpoint and robbed in downtown Baden-Baden, Germany today but were released unharmed. A good number of people and livestock were killed today when a tornado set down in central Arkansas. A good number of people were stricken with the Ebola virus yesterday when frolicking with a Zebra. So, assuming that the Ebola virus, being robbed, and death are all bad things, is there any "good number" that would be appropriate here other than zero? But is zero even a number or just the absence of a number? Can you have positive negative? A "good" negative? What does this even mean? Besides laziness, of course. – Contributed by P.B.

“Cause I will be in Fresno on business” – Because is a word, cuz is its shortened version traveling on the shortbus to language school (see also, fer, whull, and wur in previous posts), and cause is “a reason for an action or condition”. You can not use cause and because interchangeably as my boss once did in an e-mail when he was going to be traveling to Fresno.

Nuther – That’s a whole nuther matter altogether. STOP! Nuther is not a word. Another is a word, but another would not work in that sentence, for example: That’s a whole another matter altogether. You can use other, or additional, but you cannot use nuther, a shortened version of another, being used where the real word doesn’t even work!

Metropolitan/Cosmopolitan Ice cream – Ever heard of these? No? Neither have I. Well actually someone did comment on metropolitan ice cream today, and well, here we are. Neopolitan ice cream I’ve not only heard of I’ve actually had it. Metropolitan ice cream could be ice cream made and/or sold in a city. Cosmopolitan ice cream on the other hand might be sophisticated with worldwide appeal. So what if you’re having very refined neopolitan ice cream in a large city? Cosneometlitan?

Travasse ye maties! – You can traverse a crevasse but you can’t travasse a crevasse, or anything else for that matter. When I heard this term the first time I couldn’t help but think of the pirate term “Avast Ye!” from the Dutch term for 'hold fast' and means "Stop and pay attention.", like, "Get a load of this." I suppose this could be developed into a new term meaning come over, come over here, come across. Its quite fun actually, try it, next time you are requesting a group of your friends to join you cry out, “Travasse ye maties!”.

The Communistic Trifecta – The other day a woman at my work entered into the pantheon of this blog with a single sentence during which she improperly used supposably, referenced the fictional book in the Bible called Revelations, and to seal the deal, invented a new word, communistic. It’s a little difficult to explain this out of context, but, in talking about the economy, and how China owns two trillion dollars of foreign currency (mostly U.S. dollars), she said something to the affect of “supposably in the book of Revelations there is the mention of communistic influence”. I immediately asked to be transferred to any office or cubicle that was anywhere near hers that I may more aptly and more often record such priceless gemlets of language manglage. – Contributed by S.H.

Currently compiling entries for the next blog including:

Over Indulge

Innividual

Nothingness

Anywayz

Refuttal

Lactition

Bohemoth

and more!