A friend mentioned recently that he hates Cingular--the old cell phone company--because their ads blanketed every flat surface in the United States for so long that "singular"--an actual word--now looks wrong to him. He added that "ludicrous" also looks weird, thanks to the success of the rapper/actor Ludacris (though obviously it's impossible to hate Ludacris).
I think this is an interesting phenomenon. Knowing full well that asking for audience participation is the fool's errand to end all fools' errands, I ask the audience: can you think of any other words like this?
Car names, maybe? Pharmaceuticals? I think I'll take a sleeping pill and noodle on it.
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Rappers are pretty notorious for this, with the most heinous offender being Fabolous. Like, what does he gain by replacing the 'u' with an 'o'? If 'fabo' meant something, it might be kind of cool.Like if it were a synonym for insouciant, for example. I wish there were a rapper named Insouciantlous. He'd want to rap about somebody being a punkass trick, but he is too nonchalant and he just doesn't care.
ReplyDeleteUh...also outcast no longer looks as right to me as outkast. I don't think rappers realize the proofreading strain they put me under when I work with teens on essays. And I'd really like to know how this one girl I worked with thought it was appropriate to spell 'come' as 'cum' repeatedly in her book report. It's almost too depressing to imagine.
Outkast, yes. I should have thought of that. I still think "fabulous" looks more normal than "fabolous" though.
ReplyDeleteThanks, too, for including the phrase "cum repeatedly" in your response. My traffic is about to go through the roof. If only you'd worked "teen" in there somewhere...
Bwahahaa...I was going to comment back with some more porn search terms, but then I thought, no--too much. Sometimes I exercise restraint.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, I just made a bondage pun. You're welcome.
KRISPY. That's another one.
ReplyDeleteIf you're scoring at home, I just shot out of bed at 5:15a.m. to point this out.
I'm annoyed that I couldn't tell what was wrong with that word for a solid few seconds.
ReplyDeleteInfiniti.
ReplyDeleteGoogle.
ReplyDelete