Me Fail English? Quick Follow Up

There are correct and incorrect ways to pronounce the following words:

• aunt;
• scallops;
• iron; and
  
• tournament.
  

Aunt is not pronounced in such a way to confuse the word with an insect. It is pronounced the same way as haunt, gaunt, and taunt.

Scallops is pronounced the way Maritime fishermen who gather them for you pronounce it; the same way you pronounce mall, stall or ball.

Iron has 2 syllables. I and ron. My friends say I pronounce it like I Ron, but they're just stupid. It is not I-earn; the O is there for a reason.

Tour. Nament. Tour. Nament. Tour nament. Tournament. Not Ternament.

Me Fail English? That's Unpossible

I love me my Ralph Wiggum and couldn't wait to use a Wiggism in a post. This post is a bit of an old gripe to those of you who know me. I've even tweeted about it a bit. What grinds my gears today is the misuse of vocabulary in the English language (I'm staying away from grammar since bad grammar is something I will put up with).

There are three general vocabulary mistakes that irk me:

1. using words that don't exist;
2. malapropisms; and
3. 10 cent words.

I'm going to go into a bit more detail about each, but I'd also like you to contribute any you've come across by posting a comment. I'll add each to the list below. I've heard so many that I've forgotten many of them.

Words that Don't Exist

This first category is my favourite (if you can have a favourite irk). I have more examples of this error than of the rest. It all started a few years ago when I was chatting with a colleague. Said colleague was partially responsible for reviewing documents prior to sending the documents out to the world. She said:

The quality of the writing here is marginable at best.

I wanted to say to her that the quality would improve if we had people reviewing documents who had more than a marginal understanding of English. Since that day I've had numerous discussions with friends and the practice of using words that do not exist is more common than you think.

The following is a list of real world examples (I've left out George W. Bush, too easy):

• I want to politefully tell this person they are wrong.
• I ran out of money, subsequentially I could not buy the goods.
• Irregardless of the rules, I want to use that word (note, it does show up in dictionaries now, but by sheer force of its use rather than it being a word).
• I think Argentinia is going to win the game.
• He is supposably the best in the world.
  

Malapropisms

These ones are fun and probably the most common. Somebody says something that is a word that generally sounds like what they are trying to say but isn't correct. The most common example being "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes".
Again, here are some real world example:

• The pain is decapitating (this one makes me laugh every time I hear it).
• Take a moment to flush out your ideas (should be flesh).
• Revert back (to revert is to go back, the use of back is redundant).

10 Cent Words

10 cent words are words that do exist, but the reason for their existence appears solely to annoy me. For example, there is never a situation where you can't substitute the word use for utilize. Why would you ever use utilize? I don't come across these often, but there are two others that I hear almost daily: in respect of and with respect to. Can't we just say of, or about?

• Acclimatized (just use acclimated, you're driving AA crazy).

People who use words that don't exist, malapropisms and 10 cent words are probably trying to sound intelligent. Your vocabulary doesn't make you sound more intelligent, your ideas do. But your vocabulary can make you sound stupid.