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more about wrong word of the day

Sadly, many of these mangled words are frequently encountered in places they shouldn't be. They pop up too often in all walks of life and in all kinds of publications and speaking situations ranging from chance conversations at bus stops to television broadcast news programs to formal speech making. Gladly, examples of misused words are in the tiny minority compared with the number of occurrences of correctly used words we meet up with in everyday life.

Why do bad things happen to good words?

A word or expression may be wrong for no end of reasons:

Bad grammar.
Poor logic.
Improper or unaccepted usage.
Overblown or pompous; understated.
Wordy.
A bad fit for the intended audience.
Incorrect punctuation or spelling.
Doesn't exist.
Mistakenly substituted for another word.

You name it; there's virtually no end to the kinds of things that can go wrong when English is manhandled.

why are bad words Sometimes good?

Are misuses to be outlawed? Are mis-users to be banned? Are we to ridicule or punish the guilty or praise the faithful? Let's face it; English is a tough language to master; it's full of difficult grammatical constructions and overflowing with words, words, words. In short, it ain't easy. Besides, who has time or energy to always get his language right in this busy life we lead today? So let's take these misbegotten bloopers with a grain of salt; at least for a while, let's abandon a jaundiced view of what English should be—let's have some fun with it.

Along the way we may have a laugh or two while we attempt to explain what went wrong. We'll also get an occasional veiled glimpse at how elegant, expressive, powerful, and beautiful English can be when properly used.

are all warped words evil?

Misbegotten words found in poetry or other artistic productions such as plays, literary fiction, or other forms of creative writing are not excluded from Wrong Word Of The Day.

Sometimes, such words are plain, old-fashioned blunders by authors, who are mere mortals like the rest of us; sometimes they are the result of old fashioned words or expressions or archaic ways of thinking or spelling. Far more often, however, a deviant word or expression in a creative work is the result of an artistic convention in which "anything goes." Anything is allowed to go in these formats because of an ancient and honorable principle called poetic license.

Wrong Word Of The Day respects the concept of poetic license because, within limits not delineated here, if a word fits the spirit and intent of a creative work, it's right for that work. And some of these kinds of misbegotten words are real beauties!

caution

In Wrong Word of The Day, The Muse Of Language Arts is not trying to replace the dictionary. Instead, The Muse takes a romp through the pastures of words.

The Muse seeks to amuse while enlightening, to have some worthwhile fun. As a result, although The Muse strives for accuracy where accuracy can be had, it would be unsafe to rely on this feature for authoritative linguistic information. Take what is offered with a grain of salt and in the spirit in which it is offered.

If you seek the authority of scholarship, The Muse advises you to consult an expert source like Webster's Unabridged Dictionary or The Oxford English Dictionary. Many excellent books written by experts in the field of etymology are free at libraries or can be acquired at reasonable cost. Check with the ETAF-Amazon Collection for suggestions.

As you romp with The Muse, be wary:

Etymology is the relevant branch of linguistics, but The Muse is not trying to be an etymologist, nor is it trying to formalize its approach or become scientific.
Word origins are often lost in antiquity and many cannot be reconstructed. As a result, at best a word's source often can only be guessed at; at worst, hope of recovery is altogether out of the question.
Often the "scientific" etymology of a word is obscure, ambiguous, doubtful, speculative, or unknown. Scholars and other expert sources often disagree on an origin or can only guess about it.
It's fun to speculate in such cases, and The Muse feels free to indulge in speculation on how a word acquired the meaning in has today, on its relations to other words, and so on. Such speculations are not wild, however; they are always based on clues or rational thought.
The Muse treats slang, speculates about origins, and sometimes takes liberties with etymological data.
There is no attempt to be exhaustive or complete by listing every definition or every sense of a word. A word may have more than one sense, but she may only explore the one (or ones) that titillate.
The Muse may take liberties with interpretations or may stretch the connections among words.