VERBOSITEE: Look it up, brainiac.

What's so "funny" about "quotation" marks?

2008-08-07T09:22:00.001-05:00

See for yourself.

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

This fabulously funny blog was supplied by one of my co-workers, who somehow can always find the funniest stuff on the interwebs.

100th Post! Let's celebrate!

2008-07-25T14:54:00.003-05:00

. . . with some fouled up cakes!

This one has random quote around the main message. Amber, "we will miss" you. So does that mean they won't REALLY miss her? They're just screwing around and they all hate her? Messed up.

And looks like someone took the instructions a liiiiiitle too literally on this one.

There's a bathroom on the right.

2008-07-18T10:26:00.003-05:00

Best word to hit Merriam-Webster in years:

Mondegreen: a word or phrase that results from the mishearing of something said or sung.

You know, like 'scuse me while I kiss this guy.

Or never made it as a white man, couldn't cut it as a poor manchurian.

Or my husband's favorite:

Lucille! Lucille! She's a dead osprey. (From the dumbest song ever by Fallout Boy. Lyrics should be "This ain't a scene, it's a GD arms race." Actually, they SHOULDN'T be, because those are the crappiest lyrics of all time.)

What's your favorite mondegreen?

Getting Weddinged.

2008-07-17T08:44:00.004-05:00

A brand, spanking new term from the life of my fabulous sister. Apparently it's resonating with lots of peeps.

Getting Weddinged: The act of having a marriage ceremony long after the actual marriage has taken place.

Enjoy!

Words that don't exist . . . but should.

2008-07-16T13:53:00.002-05:00

My pal Jodi sent me this little gem a few days ago. It's from the Daily Candy, which everyone knows is fabulous. It seems they've published a book of fun, made-up words that fit all those situations in life that need a word made up for them. Way to be, Daily Candy! Whor d'oeuvre is one of my personal faves.

Nuthin sez claz like a vanytie playt.

2008-07-15T08:44:00.001-05:00

Saw this one at the Barnes & Noble in Omaha. It's a black Chrysler 300 with GOLD accents. GOLD! As if that weren't tacky enough on its own, the owner decided to declare his (and of course it's a him) status with a misspelled license plate. Awesome.

I'd love to meet the dude who posted this.

2008-06-30T09:54:00.003-05:00

I'm surprised "required" is correct and "access" is not. Weird.

Even more proof . . .

2008-06-26T13:18:00.000-05:00

That made up or misspelled baby names are bad ideas.

Semicolons on the subway

2008-06-24T08:34:00.001-05:00

A story from this winter about my least favorite punctuation mark making an appearance . . . and it's actually used correctly.

Yay for new words!

2008-06-19T09:01:00.001-05:00

hyperwhite adj. Relating to speech and dress patterns devoid of non-white influences, particularly among nerds. Also: hyper-white.—hyperwhiteness n.

junior moment n. A momentary lapse into immaturity; nervousness or folly caused by youth or inexperience.

plutoid (PLOO.toyd) n. A celestial body that orbits the Sun, has a roughly spherical shape, is farther away from the Sun than Neptune, and shares its orbit with other objects.

tweetup n. A real world meeting between two or more people who know each other through the online Twitter service.

cowpooling pp. Purchasing a whole cow or side of beef from a local farmer and sharing the cost among multiple families. [Blend of cow and carpooling.]

CGI fatigue n. Feelings of boredom and frustration caused by viewing movies that use excessive or inferior digital special effects.

BlackBerry prayer n. The head-down, slightly hunched position that is characteristic of a person using a BlackBerry or similar device.

staycation n. A stay-at-home vacation. Also: stay-cation.

Yay for WordSpy!

Ambi-what-now?

2008-06-13T08:55:00.002-05:00

Reader question: If you can be AMBIVALENT, does that mean you can be BIVALENT?

Hoyden answer: Uh, no.

Reader question the second: Why the hell not?

Hoyden answer: Because the prefix of the word is AMBI, which means "both" in Latin. AMBI-VALENT means you could go either way. AMBI-DEXTROUS means you have dexterity in both hands. AMBI's Greek counterpart is AMPHO. So an amphibian is an animal that can live in both land and water. Get it?

Reader question: Oh. So does that mean I can be valent?

Hoyden (sighing) answer: I suppose technically you could, but no one would know what you're talking about.

Wibbly-Wobbly

2008-06-11T10:04:00.004-05:00

This is my new favorite stupid word of the week. I've been using it to describe things. I need to stop. In case you're not familiar with Stranger Than Fiction, "wibbly-wobbly" plays a prominent role in one of the phantom narrator's more hilarious lines about a government mental wellness professional:

Why was Harold talking to this man? This man... was an idiot;

this man used words like "wibbly-wobbly" and "convo,"

and explained that trees were trees. Of course trees were trees;

Harold knew that trees were trees.

Dumb as wibbly-wobbly may be, it works rather well for certain descriptive instances. My apologies to Kay Eiffel and Harold Crick both.

More from the bad-talking cats

2008-06-10T08:40:00.003-05:00

This might just look funny, but I'm interpreting this as a harsh criticism of this type of overstimulating children's toys and the long-term damage they have on attention span, memory, and learning ability.

What kind of experience is that?

2008-06-09T08:52:00.002-05:00

On the local morning news a few days ago, the new (blonde) anchor was discussing our state's candidates for U.S. senate. She informed the viewers that one of the candidates had given a speech where he "tooted" his experience. At first I thought she meant "touted," but I could be wrong. I mean, if the dude is looking for attention, tooting your experience is one way to get it.

Oh, stop the smiling!

2008-06-04T11:51:00.002-05:00

This one is just making me crinkle my nose because it's adorable . . . and crazy too. Nothing in this is wrong, per se. It's just . . . well, look at it!

Raving reviews

2008-06-03T16:47:00.003-05:00

So this week I've received 2 e-mails talking about the raving reviews a movie has received. Um, isn't it supposed to be RAVE review? Raving is a word that's usually used to describe lunatics, if I'm not mistaken.

Maybe I'm just being a raving harpy. Or a rave harpy?

Reallies? Okays.

2008-05-29T08:23:00.001-05:00

Another gem from DH's Grandma. This one was taken at a nail salon in Chicago's far west suburbs.

Typo personality

2008-05-28T13:36:00.001-05:00

Here's a fun story from my hometown paper. My hubby's Grandma found us this one.

Spring Cleaning

2008-05-21T11:02:00.003-05:00

Yep, it’s that time of year. Trees are budding, birds are chirping, and I am cleaning. Though I normally am a rather messy person by nature, there’s something about spring that actually makes me WANT to reorganize the closet, move the furniture when I vacuum, and even wipe out the kitchen cabinets.

So why not clean up my vocabulary too? All of those weird, overused words and phrases—it seems like a great time to sweep them out of my word repertoire. A list of my prime offenses? Many I will never openly admit to (yikes!), but here’s a few I need to cut back on:

Random – yeah, I know. I’m holding my head in shame.
What ev – I totally blame this one on my neighbor.
Cute – it can still apply to babies and bunnies, but THAT’S IT!
Drama queen – my husband hates it when I use this one on him.
No, yeah – I think I confuse people with this.

So what are your word hangups? You know, the ones you really need to shake. Now's the time!

We can stop blogging now.

2008-05-13T14:55:00.003-05:00

We found it. We can die happy now. Thanks GrammarBlog for providing this sublime sample. Wow. I just can't stop looking at it!

NEW video fun!

2008-05-12T10:27:00.002-05:00

Now, edited by the clients, here are NEW tourism videos. Won't you please have a look, even if you've seen them before? PLEASE?!?

The perfect punctuation storm

2008-05-04T16:47:00.003-05:00

Missing commas, random apostrophes, misspellings and more. All in one place. Wow. Thanks to my super cool Grandma-in-law for snagging this beauty.

For to measure the tapes.

2008-05-01T17:01:00.001-05:00

Preverts?

2008-05-01T11:07:00.003-05:00

We learned a whole lot about search engine optimization today at work. And while viewing the most common search terms, some funny trends emerged.

1. The hierarchy of needs is alive and well. Sex was #1. YouPorn was #2.
2. Perverts can't spell. Number #10 was YouPron.
3. Nothing in global politics, science, education, or technology was anywhere in the top 50.

These interwebs haven't done much to change people's priorities, I suppose.

Stop hating on the And.

2008-04-29T15:31:00.003-05:00

It’s a perfectly good conjunction. And it’s a perfectly good way to start a sentence.

I know. When we were in elementary school, we were told that a sentence couldn’t start with “and.” So many people—many of which are my clients—still cling to this teaching today. But the grammar rulebook has changed, people. Even Scholiast agrees that this conjunction usage is grammatically correct.

So quit hating! And embrace the fabulousness of And.