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And that's just their IQ, nevermind their age!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

I hate to burst the Indian Bubble.

Indians are very schizoidal. We have a knack from coming up with an array of neologisms, half of which are merely words that have a condemned pronunciation.
And that's not it.
We also conveniently MAKE up the spellings of the words we pronounce differently. Sic today, i have sought to officially calling it BUBBLEBURSTIN' Day, where i shall cast aforth light on the various words most of us make up without having the slightest clue of it.
  • Presumptious (Obsolete!): Today, this word is officially known as presumptuous, the pronunciation being presump-choo-us. This word is a hybrid from the verb 'presume', which, in Latin, is Janus-faced in a way the it not only means "to suppose", but also, "to take liberties". An anecdote about Sir James M. Barrie aptly illustrates; One day, he opened the door on a reporter he didn't want to see.
  • "Mr, Barrie, i presume," the reporter says.
    "Yes!" The, usually calm, Mr. Barrie snapped back and slammed the door shut.
  • Prophesize (sic): The word is prophesy(the last syllable pronounced as sigh) and the noun is prophecy(the last syllable being pronounced as see).
  • Portentious: The word is portentuous, which comes from the noun portent (strange signs or omens)
  • Unctious: Though this word is found on Webster's Second and Third, this word doesn't exist. The word is actually unctuous, again, the choo sound quite audible. It means to be oily in a suave, insincere manner. The words unctuous, annoint, and ointment come from the same Latin verb.
  • Unequivocably(which, by the way, is Unequivocally Wrong!: The word is unequivocally,meaning without any qualifications, absolutely, clearly, and unambiguously.
  • Undoubtably(again, undoubtedly wrong.): This word, without any doubt, is undoubtedly, and not undoubtably. Both this and the former words have common mistakes.
So, that's all for today!

P.S. I wrote all this not because i am a purist, but merely because i am preoccupied with the purity of a language and its protection from the use of foreign or altered forms.
P.P.S. I do not know if that was tautology, or a juxtapose. I'd appreciate if someone could help me with that.

3 Had Something to Say:

Trinity said...

That was very informative. Indians aren't the only people to do this. We Texans take liberties with language all the time.

Laura said...

Thanks for coming by my blog and also taking part in the epic frog- battle. I have a word of the day calender that I adore. In fact, in my office I have about a dozen words taped up just to make me smile. I too adore language. This post just gave you another follower.

Crazy Newt said...

This reminds me of my old linguistic anthropology classes. One of the central beliefs of said class was that so long as your language gets your point across, it is correct.

It was pretty hard to accept text messages, "lol", and internet shorthand as being perfectly correct forms of "language", though!