Words you dislike? Or really like?

OldPhiKap said:
I just avoid the awkward question by sticking them in the middle. So we're buying the Smi’ths house and keeping up with the Jo’nes lifestyle, but it's Isaiah Ev’ans world.

When someone complains, I tell them to read Cormac McCarthy and get some culture. That usually ends the conversation.

(I guess I would describe my style as “aggressive stupidity”).
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My wife and I had a discussion regarding our holiday card and whether there is an apostrophe after our name in the signature, i.e. The Krzyzewskis or The Krzyzewski's. The conclusion is that there is no apostrophe. We looked at last year's collection to see what others did and realized that most people avoid this altogether by signing "The Krzyzewski Family" - I'm convinced that most of them either weren't sure or were having huge fights on the matter so compromised/punted.
 
75Crazie said:
Surely there must be some sort of DBR punishment for repeatedly and aggressively spelling Coach K's name correctly in a post?
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LOL. Former Chronicle sportswriter here - the proper spelling was beaten into my brain (though I think we had open apple K set for Krzyzewski as well). I also overlapped with Wojciechowski so spell his name properly as well. And Ricky Price....
 
CrazyNotCrazie said:
LOL. Former Chronicle sportswriter here - the proper spelling was beaten into my brain (though I think we had open apple K set for Krzyzewski as well). I also overlapped with Wojciechowski so spell his name properly as well. And Ricky Price....
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Okay, now you're just showing off.

I can do that too. I can spell "Jon."


Some would say there should be another letter. What the "h"? I don't think so.
 
I'm reading a compilation of Safire columns and came across a phrase that I just had to put somewhere. This particular column was on what he called the "arch pause", which appears to be an artificial pause added by a writer to highlight a turn of phrase he or she considers to be particularly clever. The example quoted was a headline on the Russian female newscaster that does a slow striptease during the news segment: "Russian Anchorwomen Do the Nudes, er News". Safire's take is that the arch pause is a signifier that says "I ostentatiously hesitate to say this." That is brilliance.
 
I recently heard a rich, powerful person in a tense meeting use the word 'gobsmacked' in an aside re: a topic that was not the meeting topic.
 
Never ran into this one before last night's crossword. Nimiety. I'd say I had no clue, but this was the answer so I had a "clue". Anyone know what it is without looking it up?
 
Stolen from elsewhere, but it explains why I'm single.

Her: You sure love to beat people over the head with your vocabulary, don't you?

Me: I think the word you're looking for is "bludgeon".
 
CrazyNotCrazie said:
My wife and I had a discussion regarding our holiday card and whether there is an apostrophe after our name in the signature, i.e. The Krzyzewskis or The Krzyzewski's. The conclusion is that there is no apostrophe. We looked at last year's collection to see what others did and realized that most people avoid this altogether by signing "The Krzyzewski Family" - I'm convinced that most of them either weren't sure or were having huge fights on the matter so compromised/punted.
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good grief, I just saw this, some friends and I have been at time Apostrophe Police on people's signs outside their cottages (at a nearby lake). You just can't possibly accept "The Johnson's" unless everyone happens to refer to the head of household as The Johnson. Not even open for discussion. Yet another example of the decline of our civilization and what used to be a language.
 
budwom said:
good grief, I just saw this, some friends and I have been at time Apostrophe Police on people's signs outside their cottages (at a nearby lake). You just can't possibly accept "The Johnson's" unless everyone happens to refer to the head of household as The Johnson. Not even open for discussion. Yet another example of the decline of our civilization and what used to be a language.
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Clearly it should be the Johnsons’s (pronounced Jon-son-ses-ses) and Krzyzewskis’s (pronounced… nevermind). So obvious!
 
Devils Tower in Wyoming is so-named because the clerk didn’t put an apostrophe on the National Monument paperwork when submitted. At least that’s what remember being told out there.

But no idea whether it was supposed to be Devil’s or Devils’.
 
OldPhiKap said:
Devils Tower in Wyoming is so-named because the clerk didn’t put an apostrophe on the National Monument paperwork when submitted. At least that’s what remember being told out there.

But no idea whether it was supposed to be Devil’s or Devils’.
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It depends on how many devils you are talking about.
 
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