In the grand tradition of rod iron and wallah!, we now have working progress. As in, "I haven't finished this yet, it's still a working progress." I have seen this multiple times of late. Do you really think that's what that phrase is? It (unlike rod iron) doesn't even make sense.
Jesus wept, and so do I for the literacy of the American public. But then these are the same sort of people who advise other people to get rid of their bookcases and replace them with a nice sofa instead, so, y'know, it's to be expected.
xoxo
P.S. I actually also saw someone on craigslist yesterday advertising "rot iron" furniture. Dude! I don't want your disintegrating coffee table.
4 comments:
of course, it can also be amusing to hear what happens when the excess goes too much in the other direction, too. i knew someone who, instead of spelling it "wallah", used to say it "viola", which, in many ways, can be just as satisfying for snarking purposes as the other way around.
English is a very funny language, indeed.
It's a doggie dog world.
"Viola" comes from the direct opposite cause of wallah apparently. The "wallah" idiots have never seen the word in print and the viola person (could there be more than one?) has only seen it in print.
I give far more sympathy to the person who mispronounces a word they've only read than to a person who tragically misspells a word they've never read, because I'm a bitch. And a snob. And because I probably mispronounce a crapload of words myself that I've only ever read, not heard other people use, being the poorly-educated white trash that nevertheless read everything she could get her hands on in her youth (before the internet turned her stoopid) that I am. :-)
Did I ever tell you people about my "hors d'oeuvres" problem? In my youth I knew that word, in print, meant appetizers. I also knew when someone said "orderves" they meant appetizers.
But when confronted with hors d'oeuvres in print, my brain would short circuit and I could never think of how to say it, except phonetically as whores de ovrahs. It became a private joke between me and my mom. I'd be like, "Hey, are you making any whores de ovrahs for Thanksgiving?" and we'd laugh hysterically.
I was just thinking that "rot iron" is a perfectly good spelling for the pronunciation of someone from Down East Maine. ;-)
Now will you bring some ho's de over for me???
(Incidentally, President Truman apparently mispronounced many words he'd only read but never knowingly heard. Used them correctly, however.)
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