Opinion: Word manglers spit mouthfuls of mush

Say what?

It bothers me that the word “ain’t” is now listed in some dictionaries. It’s even in my computer spell-check.

What can really hang me up are words like “base” and “bass.”

Base is what a baseball player steps on; it also can mean an act that is really low. However, if a man’s singing voice is low, he is singing base – only it’s spelled bass, like the fish, which is pronounced bass. Nothing confusing about that.

Opossum? Did the pronunciation come before the O was added, or have English speakers always ignored the superfluous O? Possum with and without the O are both listed as correct in my computer spell-check.

Some speakers who mangle certain words, probably spell them correctly. For instance, when I hear the mangled version of hundred, I want to bellow in my schoolteacher voice, “It’s not hun-dur-ed.” Surely they wouldn’t spell it that way.

The president of the United States, George W. Bush, joins many others who insist on adding two letters to the word nuclear to make it nu-cu-lear. Even those in very high places can fiddle with the language.

It’s like fingernails across a chalkboard when I hear something like, “I wont to be yer representative.” Want has an A, and your has four letters – none of which are an E.

I would like to see signs placed around Springfield announcing the name of the sporting goods store is “Bass Pro,” not the other away around. If so, fewer strangers might ask directions to the “Pro Bass place.”

The word “our” is a pronoun signifying belonging to us; therefore, there is no reason to invite one to “come over to arr house.”

Some words start out as perfectly ordinary before ending up a mouthful of mush. A simple “I am going to” morphs into “Imonna.” You might hear it in “Imonna ask her to go to the movies.” And to compliment the lunch menu, a word mangler might say “Thisheresgudfude.”

In response to a big victory by the Aardvarks (aka Varks), a big fan might let loose with “Howboutthemvarks?” Pour a friend a cup of coffee and as the cup nears being full, you might just hear “Thateldo.”

Head scratchers

It’s a mystery to me why some words that have defined meanings are used in other ways. Case in point: “broad,” which has all sorts of definitions having nothing to do with women, has become an unflattering name for women. I hope that none of my readers have used this caustic remark. If you did, I hope the lady in question convinced you not to do it again.

What did a lemon ever do to anyone to become the designated slur for a defective car? “This thing’s a lemon!” Why not grapefruit? Kiwi? Ugli fruit? Alas, the poor lemon is doomed to be the object of vilification from disgruntled car owners.

A pair of names for economic groups is baffling: Filthy rich and dirt poor. What’s up with that?

You might say you are “healthy as a horse” or “sick as a dog.” Why connect dogs with ill health? Aren’t dogs our best friends? Maybe not: We may say we are treated like a dog, lead a dog’s life, and say we are dog tired. If our feet are hurting, our dogs are barking; a jerk is a yellow dog or a dirty dog. That’s a strange way to speak about our best friend.

Word weirdness goes on and on.

“A word from our sponsor” turns out to be hundreds of words. To restaurant waitpersons, male and female customers alike are “You guys.”

When someone in a big hurry says to me, “Step on it,” what am I supposed to step on, and how many times do I need to step on it?

And I don’t even want to think about how to respond to, “Shake a leg.”

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.[[In-content Ad]]