Errorist returns
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In the comments on "Final prepositions again", AntC alerts us to Elle Cordova's latest, part III in the Grammarian Saga: "Grammarian vs Errorist showdown at the secret L'error".
Part I was: "Grammarian vs Errorist – a supervillain showdown"
And Part II: "The Errorist strikes again!"
For some background on the negatively-evaluated version of the term grammarian, see here.
Update — Google's auto-generated transcript for this clip is, appropriately, full of strange errors.
- "Grammarian" is variously rendered as "Grimarian" and "Grim Marion".
- "Malaprop" is "Maliprop".
- "Errorist" is "arist" as well as "errorist" (in lowercase).
- "Misprint" is "Missprint".
- "fastidious" is "festious".
- "apostrophic" is "apastrophic".
- "evening run-ons" is "evening run What?"
AntC said,
November 19, 2025 @ 8:24 pm
Thanks Mark,
Doesn't work for me. (I can't smudge 'error' into a single syllable.)
Is that a genuine pronunciation for some varieties of English?
Mark Liberman said,
November 20, 2025 @ 6:58 am
@AntC "Doesn't work for me. (I can't smudge 'error' into a single syllable.)"
Elle Cordova does it by brute force — I don't think "air" is her normal pronunciation of "error", at least not in phrase-final position, where her rendition is about 400 msec long.
Stephen Goranson said,
November 20, 2025 @ 7:03 am
?…cliffhanger
Rodger C said,
November 20, 2025 @ 10:39 am
Is that a genuine pronunciation for some varieties of English?
I once read a newspaper interview in which the reporter had an interviewee referring to "a clear case of driver air." This is common in rhotic American dialects.
Bob Ladd said,
November 20, 2025 @ 1:51 pm
I agree with Rodger C that error -> air is perfectly possible in some rhotic American accents. In the same class is mirror -> mere. (On one of Joni Mitchell's early albums she rhymes "Nathan LaFraneer" and "in the rear-view mirror".)