"The patient search and vigil long / Of him who treasures up a wrong"

[larryhammer]

There are certain words that, when you read or especially write them too often, start to look wrong. People. Shoe. Digit. (I spent much of yesterday writing about check-digit routines.) An informal poll suggests that while there are words with this property for many people, not all words that go skludgy on a person go skludgy on others -- they are personal skludges.

What words do this for you?

---L.

Subject quote from Mazeppa, Byron.

Comments

[selidor]

Plant. My fingers insist that it should be planet.

[larryhammer]

Ouch -- that could get ... problematic.

---L.

[selidor]

I suspect I'd be entirely unemployable as a writer for any gardening magazine.

[larryhammer]

I was thinking something similar. :-)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Any word I have to type too many times.

[larryhammer]

Including conjunctions and articles? (Not a facetious question.)

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

yes, with conjunctions. Don't will look wrong, and you're when I'm really tired. Articles no, but I get dyslexic with those.

[larryhammer]

That's an interesting split, conjunctions and articles. Huh.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yep -- I think it's less a function of the word's qualities and more a question of how many times I've stared at it recently. Grammatical furniture is mostly invisible enough to escape this, but "who" loses word-ness faster than just about anything else in the English language.

Who.

Who.

Wuh-hoh. No, seriously, what is with that pronunciation.

[larryhammer]

Heh.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Any word I stare at for a long time. My mind starts sounding out all of its splintery phonic permutations.

[larryhammer]

So it's duration more than frequency?

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Yes--I remember staring at a five-letter word (but not what the word was) in fifth grade while we took turns reading a story aloud, and becoming dismayed. It wasn't my turn at that moment, at least. Something like how if one stares at a blank wall, one's eyes unfocus, except that temporarily I couldn't remember how to pronounce the word correctly or what it meant. Hmm, perhaps that makes it a different issue from what your post asked about.

[larryhammer]

Considering the number of people who report reading, and not just writing, the word can do it for them, I suspect it's the same thing.

---L.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

The name Margaret. No matter how many times I hit spell check it always looks wrong.

[larryhammer]

Huh. And, huh.

---L.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hedge. Hedge, hedge, hedge. Whut?

[larryhammer]

Ooch -- I can see that as easily going skludgy on me.

---L.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It was the first word that ever did, back when I was a child. I was trimming a neighbour's privet hedge to gather clippings to feed a stick insect, and thinking about hedges, and suddenly there it went, and I was completely bewildered. I thought something had broken in my mind.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Who and how don't look how they sound exactly.

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

"Shall" and "must" do it to me. Specification writing isn't that difficult, but it's tedious and uses certain words too often for sane human beings to bear. I find myself desperate to use a synonym. Alas, no other words carry the specific and necessary meaning(s) contract language requires.

[larryhammer]

I can see that being be difficult.

---L.

[harvestar.livejournal.com]

Would. I spent about ten minutes on a phone call with my friend in 8th grade trying to figure it out once. Still gets me sometimes.

[larryhammer]

Heh. And it's so useful, too. Or would be.

---L.