"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Grammaticaster

  

A grammaticaster was a petty grammarian; a grammatical pedant. Dr Johnson considered one to be ‘a mean verbal pedant; a low grammarian’.  I wonder if he had anyone specific in mind?
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2 comments:

  1. Librarian20 March 2013 at 05:54

    Am I an ortographicaster, then? And Frances an apostrophicaster?

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  2. DawnTreader20 March 2013 at 17:16

    My first guess was that it was short for grammatic disaster. (Or should that be grammatical?!)

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