Wednesday, February 17, 2010

commit-ee?

It'd be hard to be an announcer on live TV, I recognize this. However, sometimes the stupidest things get said.

I'm watching the Notre Dame vs Louisville basketball game and there was a foul, but it was sort of confusing who was fouling whom because the players were bunched together. Discussing this the announcer says:
"We're trying to figure out who the committer of the foul is and the commit-ee is." Is this like an employer/employee situation? So someone who receives a committed something-er-other is thus a commit-ee, or rather a committee?
So it's not a recipient, or even the guy who got fouled, but some pseudo-french-ified past participled English verb that supercedes the definition of an existent noun (that we happened to already snag from a French past participle anyway).

Overanalyzing complete.

7 comments:

M said...

:-) Thanks for making me laugh this morning.

the pachuco cross said...

hmmmm

Sarah said...

I just love you linguists!

Kimberly said...

I was watching ice skating tonight (polar opposites, perhaps, but still with live announcing!) and the announcer said "his strengths are so strong." Heh.

annie (the annilygreen one) said...

i know a blog you might like... http://literalminded.wordpress.com/

also, my word verification is 'waveree'....the recipient of wavering?

Vanessa Swenson said...

Em: I'm glad you laughed. I was simply exasperated.
tpc: mmmmh
Sarah: thanks, we need it.
Kim: hah! that was beautiful.
Annie: OMGollieGosh, I love that blog. It's been filed under "fun" on Google Reader. / & bwahahahahahahah

Beth schell said...

I love all made up words. They make me happy. I make up my own often. Usually they are made up verbs ending with "-ify". Some examples from my 3 year old: Mom, I'm going to snoozify (to sleep.) etc.