Wednesday, April 08, 2015

How sweet it is.

 
In a seemingly interminable meeting yesterday, one of the speakers, asked whether her committee had discussed a particular point of granular interest to the questioner, said the following:

I don't think we really had a fulsome discussion about that.

I also hope they didn't. Fulsome means "complimentary or flattering to an excessive degree." So Polonius's praise might be described as fulsome (or obsequious), but nothing about the bureaucratic process should be.

Malapropism has always amused me, and academic committee meetings are a wonderful place to observe it. And I have certainly produced my share of diction errors in my time. But this slip (not to mention the awkwardly placed modifier) made an otherwise wrist-slicingly boring meeting a little brighter.

Thus ends my gratitude affirmation for today. Now back to my regularly scheduled snark....

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