Saying Things Wrong on Purpose

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. And Martha, did you see what happened with that column that I ran the other day?

The one in the Malaysia Star where I wrote about words that people mispronounce on purpose?

Oh my gosh, yes!

I’m not alone!

No, you’re not! That was amazing! I saw all these blog entries about it.

Let me catch everyone up here. What I wrote about is words that I mispronounce on purpose.

And one of the words is, for example, muscles.

I say it like Popeye sometimes.

Right, yeah.

Instead of saying muscles, I say muscles.

Or I say computer instead of computer.

I mimic Ned Beatty in the Superman movies when he says Lex Luthor.

I say computer.

And there’s a ton.

I say toilet instead of toilet.

And there’s a ton of this stuff.

And, you know, judging by the conversations I’ve seen online, everyone does this.

On Jason Kotke’s blog at kotke.org, there were something like 250-plus comments of people contributing words that they say wrong on purpose.

It was amazing.

People just picked that up and ran with it.

But you have good speech and good language, but I bet you mispronounce a few things on purpose, right?

Perzacly.

Perzacly, yeah.

I think I made a mistake with perzacly in the column.

It’s a blend of precisely and exactly, right?

Mm—

At least that’s the way I use it, absurdovly, positively.

There we go.

There we go.

And you know what?

I’d love to open up the email channel and the telephone to everyone else to contribute the words that they mispronounce on purpose.

This stuff is fun.

I want more of it.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.

Or call us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.