mercredi, juin 28, 2006

deluded language freak seeks help for corrective tourette's

I have corrective tourette's. At least that's what Allison calls my subconscious utterances.

Let me explain. We had a professor last semester who always said the "width" (correctly) and the "heighth" (incorrectly). I can't tell you how many times I turned to see what Allison was laughing at, only to discover that she was laughing at me. I was always surprised when she pointed out that I'd just quietly muttered a "t" sound after the professor in question said "heighth."

It's not deliberate or malicious. I don't know why I do it, when I have no intention of ever saying anything to the professor. I suppose it's one (weird) way to counter my own cognitive dissonance.

And then there's my entirely obnoxious habit of correcting other people's grammar. I've mostly learned to temper it and bite my lip when "farther" and "further" or "continually" and "continuously" are misused. But I'll admit that it makes me a little bit itchy each time I remain silent.

4 commentaires:

Unknown a dit…

Well, I thank you for not taking a red marker to my blog. Or to this comment, which is already full of grammatical errors.

I may be brown, but I know English! I swear!

Mr. Middlebrow a dit…

"Corrective Tourette's"
Genius, that is.

As someone who suffers from the very closely related CCS (Cliff Claven Syndrome), I feel your pain.

The leading CCS symptom is a constitutional inability to let any trivial factoid go unmentioned or uncorrected. If you find yourself starting a sentence with the words "Uh, actually... more than four times per day, you may have CCS.

Solidarity, sister!

Happy A. a dit…

Sadly, I'm also afflicted with CCS. I'm very careful about how much I let it manifest, as it is easy for those who know me well to point out one more fact: I lost on Jeopardy!

Mr. Middlebrow a dit…

Ha! At least you got on the show. That's more than I can say.

And I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for my buggery of a French expression in the post.