Another list for my fridge. Words I must remember never to pronounce this way! Anytime I hear someone use these, it's hard just to keep from breaking out laughing in their face!! "You said WHAT??? A hahhahahahaha!!!!!!"

Please note that we are not now outlining grammatical errors, or differences in accent, or even innocent one-time slip-ups. What follows are just plain and repeated embarassments from people who don't know any better.

Most of the entries were contributed by myself, but my longtime (and extremely articulate) friend Carla was good enough to pull a couple out for me from her "bag of dolts".

(Oh yeah, if you're looking at the filename or document title, and wondering what the word means, I've decided to christen these "frabbies" in honour of someone I once worked with who was guilty of many of them, maybe even most of them. Very sweet person, too.)

PS: and hey! this page is the only one on THE ENTIRE WEB with the word "frabbies" in it!!

anti-climactical   adj.

Uh, maybe you mean anti-grammactical?

attentative   adj.

This is the result when someone makes a tentative effort at using BIG WORDS without actually paying attention to what they're saying.

cimmanon   n.

Okay, I guess this one is innocent enough. Just a slip of the tongue right?

fruitation   n.

Sooner or later, all things come to fruitation. Or something like that.

gratituous   adj.

Just got off the phone with a good friend, and he said this word! So like, when he goes out to a restaurant, does he give the waiter a gratituy?

hamroid   n.

Yeah I know it's hard to spell, what with all those extra letters and all... But geez, you'll never get the pharmacist to understand what you're talking about unless you can pronounce it properly.

Tell you what, instead of going in and making a fool of yourself by saying it wrong, I'll tell you whatchoo do: you just walk over to the counter, you drop your pants and you bend over. Then you point right at the sore spot with your finger, and you say in a loud slow voice: "Hey I need something for THIS."
Then they'll know exactly what they're dealing with.

hemroid   n.

Look, did you try my suggestion or am I just wasting my time here??

irregardless   adj.

Okay, so if irregardless is supposed to suggest "without regard" or "notwithstanding...", what does its opposite regardless mean? Maybe you really meant the word irrigation?

libary   n.

I hear this one way too often. Excuse me, have you ever been near one?

mischievious   adj.

Ugh. This one's a plague.

mispronounciation   n.

Now there's a reflexive statement. I hear this one a lot it seems.

nucular   adj.

I still hear it pronounced this way by people who otherwise appear to be quasi-literate. It's scary.

paticular   adj.

For those who aren't too particular about language.

punkin   n.

Okay, if we're gonna start dating regularly, you have to stop calling me punkin. In return, I promise never to call you dunkin, dumbkin, or dumpkin.

retortical   adj.

I guess this is the word that comes out of your mouth when you're only half-literate, and the other person you're arguing with has better comebacks than you do, and you're getting mad, and you want to outclass them by using BIG WORDS too, and you've never been clear about the relation between retort and rhetorical, but you try anyway.

I think that might explain it, but I didn't ask.

rhetoritical   adj.

This is when you try it the second time. See previous item.

simular   adj.

Probably due to the same congenital disease which gives rise to "nucular". There's this guy on one of the discussion-boards I frequent who repeatedly writes the word this way. I'm afraid to tell him. College graduate too, I think.

substract   v.

Okay okay, quit it already. I was guilty of this one myself, until about the age of seventeen. Just to show that I'm not blameless.

supposably   adv.

Oh yeah? Well I heard that supposably, you're illiterate.

sympathy   n.

If you're wondering what this one is doing here, didja ever hear someone use this word when the intended word should've been symphony? As in "Beethoven's Fifth Sympathy"? Some guy was telling me a joke one day, and it slipped out - and not once, but twice!

A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

synthethizer   n.

Difficult isn't it? It's okay, I know what you mean. Give your tongue a rest.

tounge   n.

It's surprising how often you see this reversal in print. I'm continually wondering whether the people who write it this way actually pronounce it as if it were toonj. Anyway I'll bet if you had enough time, you could probably assemble an entire library anthologizing the literary sub-genre devoted to this non-existent body part. And then you too could spend all day "speaking in tounges"!

valentimes   Feb 14.

Aw, how could I not fall in Love with you now, my cute wittle dummykins.

volumptuous   adj.

People who use the word this way are probably convinced it refers to something with lumps in it. On second thought, maybe it does.

windshield-factor   n.

This particular misconception I've encountered only among females of my acquaintance - I don't know why.

The very first time I heard this one, I managed to get her to say it three times - just to make sure I hadn't misheard (I wanted to give her a chance. Really I did.). Then I asked her why she supposed the phenomenon was called windshield-factor. The answer I was given (I'm paraphrasing) was something along the lines of "Well, you know when it gets so cold, and all the windshields get frost on them?" Okay, makes sense to me I guess. When I very gently and (and as matter-of-factly as I could) enunciated the actual expression, her eyes opened wide with surprised glee and you could see the lightbulbs suddenly turning on over her head. I think for her it was a moment of epiphany. Finally, after all those years!!

Anyway, later that same day, after relating this cute anecdote to a (girl)friend on the phone, I was met with silence, and when enquiring if anything was wrong, was greeted with an abashed and astonished admission - and I quote - "But I always thought it was windshield-factor too." Oops!