Placing the "viputeration" where it belongs

[blpurdom]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Kathryn Cawte" <kcawte at k...> wrote:
> Damn, I just wasted a perfectly good cup of coffee thanks to that 
remark.
> 
> K
> Chortling and mopping up coffee from her keyboard
 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Amanda 
>   To: HPFGU-OTChatter at y... 
>   Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 3:36 AM
>   Subject: Re: [HPFGU-OTChatter] A response
>   > John on his apparent uncontrollable need
>   > to viputerate a member
> 
>   Amanda: This sounds vagely sexy. And I like this 
> word "viputerate."
> 

Apparently "Mafalda" was attempting to use the word "vituperate" 
meaning "To find fault with abusively; rail at; berate; scold. See 
synomyms under ABUSE."  It is from the Latin "vituperatus" 
and "vitupero" meaning to blame or scold.  The most common English 
form is the adjective "vituperative."  It hardly reflects well on a 
person who's trying to make a point to use obscure words and then 
misspell them.  

(For instance, "iterate," to mean "repeat" is a perfectly legitimate 
English word, but it is more common to use "reiterate," meaning to 
re-repeat.  Saying "iterate" to mean "repeat" just sounds 
pretentious.  If "Mafalda" was going for pretentious--and it does in 
fact seem that that was the goal--the effect was pretty much ruined 
by the bad spelling.)

And frankly, if anyone was being "vituperative" it was "Mafalda."

--Barb
(who has a big old Oxford dictionary and isn't afraid to use it)