A woman on the phone yesterday said "supposibly" to me. I manfully refrained from telling her it was not yet a word.
I hate that one. Hate. But at this point, I'm ready to give in, and accept it as a new word, because I think I hear it more often than
supposedly.
I was visiting at the police station and saw "This way to the breathilizer" on two separate signs. As twitchy as my hand was, reaching for the Sharpie in my bag? I resisted. I had no wish to fight a defacing of public property charge.
I was curious about this one, and so googled. And while I wish I could get a rubber stamp made up that read, "Did you mean:" like Google puts atop their pages, or maybe take a page out of DCJ's book, and get the message pre-printed on Post-It Notes, there does seem to be at least one "breathilizer" out there, or at least a company that will market breathalizers to the spelling impaired. [link]
Watching a game of footie the other day and the commentator said that "[the manager] would be more pleaseder, with the second-half performance."
I gagged.
I made people gag last night, I told them I adjectivize nouns and veriby them also.
"Did they go to the zoo? Supposably."
I just picked up a prescription at the drive-through window. The
mass-produced
Yield sign said
Caution
Pedestians
Walking
"Did they go to the zoo? Supposably."
FIRST THING that popped in my mind.
Supposably sounds like one of the soft mouthed characters from Fat Albert. It makes me crazy. And since I can be the tinpot dictator of my classroom, I tell kids to NOT say it, that it's a status marking error, same a double negative, that peoplewill make assumptions about their background and education if they do that.
Ahem.
see my big red button? it has supposably written right on it.
Supposably sounds like one of the soft mouthed characters from Fat Albert. It makes me crazy. And since I can be the tinpot dictator of my classroom, I tell kids to NOT say it, that it's a status marking error, same a double negative, that peoplewill make assumptions about their background and education if they do that.
Good. You're completely right.
I wish I got the "zoo, supposably" reference, but it flew right over my head.
Other grammar bete noires (picture the accents please) I think in my head and never articulate because so few people obey those rules: things like the misuse of hopefully.
But when there are status marking errors, and there are plenty, then I point those out because it's crazymaking for me to hear them and say nothing.
And what's great, my students do know them already and probably have since elementary school so they can fix them on their own without me explaining. It's just they so often don't.
