Alas, poor English language, so assaulted and insulted. You are misspoken, misheard, mispronounced, misunderstood, misspelled, miswritten, misprinted, misrepresented, misused, abused, confused.
The following are only a few of the ways that the more (or less) erudite have mangled the mother tongue recently, some of them professionally. We start with a couple of bloggers who felt the need to include their own definitions.
may the peace of the garden bewith you – Bewith, a word meaning – enchant, enlighten curiously
I think she was trying to define bewitch. Be with is two words, which mean ‘to enter your heart, soul or mind, and remain there.” The next blogger defined….
gomble – a large risk with no guarantee of success I’ll gamble that his Spellchecker doesn’t work. Then on to….
My brain shut down oredi this week – and I’m already pissed that you mumble when you listen.
a still toddering child – toddling? tottering? They’re just making these up as they go.
we are directed, neigh commanded – A horse’s mouth neighs. A horse’s ass doesn’t know that it’s nay.
My friend became a little two comfortable – because it takes more than one to make that mistake.
an interesting little trieste – in a treatise by a pretentious writer
Jack DeBrul, writing as Clive Cussler – was an instant from firing, before adjusting his site picture. Stop web-surfing Jack, and see the sights. He had an old fishing boat – held together with duct tape and bailing wire. When bailing boats, use a bucket. Only use wire when baling hay . Later in the story, he had a character ride a motorcycle and – swiftly turn the wheel to avoid a collision. A steering wheel – on a motorcycle?? Maybe he needs to do that computer research!
choose to lye with the same sex – Ow! That would smart – If only the writer was.
I remember when Cypress was ‘The War of the Week’ – I remember when Cypress was a large tree, and Cyprus was where Canadian peacekeeping troops went.
The Toronto Sun says ‘Toronto Mayor is not board at council meetings.’ – He looks more like a brick, but I’m bored.
They alluded authorities for weeks – and the correct word eluded the writer.
It never seizes to amaze me – that people don’t know that it’s “ceases to amaze me.”
A Toronto bus driver was punched in the face – over a fair dispute. I wonder how hard he’d have been punched if it were a serious dispute – over a fare?
I corrected a blogger who published ‘low and behold.’ Damn you Autocorrect, which doesn’t know about ‘lo and behold.’
swallowed chick eyed as slight-of-hand trick – You made a slight mistake! The phrase is, sleight-of-hand.
Serena ‘pushes the envelope’ with bare midriff, naval ring, – Hello sailor, new in town? – and then wore it in her navel.
Russian fishermen rescued from broken ice float – I’ll float the idea that it was a floe (not a flow).
the likely hood of a revolution – There’s a likelihood SpellCheck didn’t catch this.
Christmas is passed – No, no, laws are passed. Christmas is past.
an undo emphasis on building walls – Undo your dictionary, and look up undue.
a homeless guy was stabbed in the juggler – by who, a Clown?
murder in disabaled daughter’s death – Another newspaper headline typo that proves that the last proof-reader, like the last dinosaur, is long extinct.
I think I’m ovary acting about this – Then you can’t be Chris/Caitlyn Jenner.
We find are selves back at square one – We should find ourselves back at that dictionary.
A Cambodian student has invented a robot to diffuse landmines. With 10 million of them in his country, I think they’re diffused enough. It stabilises the detonator and cuts it out….oh, it defuses landmines.
Crossword clue, cul-de-sac = alley. No, no! Alley narrow, open at both ends. Cul-de-sac wide, closed at one end. Crossword editor lazy – stupid – pissing me off!
Not an error, but in a recent post I wrote Superbowl as one word, instead of Super Bowl. SpellCheck offered me ‘Superb owl’ as an alternative. I wish I owned a superb owl. It could have watched me laugh till I almost peed myself in the dark.
