Geekety geek geek geek.

[go_team]

The anal-retentive English teacher who lives in my forebrain is still in fine form, I see:

English Genius

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 83% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

You too can try The Commonly Confused Words Test; if you're like me, you'll probably find yourself thinking, "That's a change in progress! I'm going to get this wrong, but in 20 more years I bet this'll be common usage!" Usually my inner linguist can shut up during grammar tests; her domain is spoken language, not the written stuff. Oh geez.

And those of you who are language nerds enough to have read this far might be interested in The Eggcorn Database, which takes the "commonly confused words" idea and runs with it in a way that I find truly wonderful.

Comments

[goteam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I distinctly remember the "nauseous" vs. "nauseating" question as one where I had to choose between the answer I think is right vs. the answer I'm pretty sure the testmaker thinks is right. For some reason, today I had an extra-hard time convincing myself to remember that the test was about being pedantically correct and not "what sounds okay."

I've taken enough linguistics to be highly skeptical about the question of right vs. meaningful, but on the other hand questions of usage are a good place to look for language change in progress, so for me that makes them kind of fun on a descriptive as well as a prescriptive level.

dork dork dork? dork dork dork.