I’m having a discussion with the editor of a local magazine about this word. He claims it is a word. I claim he misspelled “undulating.” He claims the person who used it confirmed the word and the spelling.
If it matters, it was used to describe a golf course, and the editor defined it as meaning “rolling.”
I say it’s a horrible spelling error. What do you all think?
I think he’s wrong. Wouldn’t a simple trip to Mr. Dictionary answer his question?
I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s “undulating” spelled by someone who’s learned it aurally - from someone with an American accent - I’d imagine.
Is it Hidden Valley Golf Course by any chance? That’s one of the only two examples of this typo in the entire Google database.
It’s not in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, 15th ed., or M-W’s unabridged, 3rd ed.
This copyeditor says “horrible misspelling.” Tell Mr. Editor to provide an authoritative cite if he’s so gosh-darned certain. Or heck, even a published example. (Some teenager’s blog doesn’t count.)
That’s what I thought, but instead of humbly apologizing to me he claimed he double checked it with the person he was interviewing and they convinced him it was a word, just one not found in any dictionary. :rolleyes:
Are you sure he’s not pulling a Seinfeld on you?
[Elaine]“The original name of War and Peace was War…What Is It Good For?” [/Elaine]
Tell him ‘youreatotalputz’ is a word meaning ‘editor’, but it’s not found in any dictionary either.
You are right. It should be between Ongoing and Onion in my Big Ass New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary.
In fairness, it sounds like Enjoli. The perfume. Maybe to put it into a verb-sense, onjulate is what you do after applying it.
I agree - it sounds like someone tried to spell it phonetically.
And even if it was a word, depending upon your audience, using it is probably a bad idea. For example, if you’re writing for a publication with circulation among the unwashed masses, using such a word would sound pretentious at best. And at worst, a large proportion of your readers would have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, so you might alienate them and/or have a bunch of people writing in corrections.
It wasn’t, but it’s funny that there’s another golf course out there that can’t spell. That’s probably the Internet reference the “editor” found.
And right now, the folks at Google are wondering why there are so many searches for onjulating. Interestingly, they offer up the usually right on the mark best guess of “Did you mean: unjulating” but this time, they get an F. B+ for effort, at least.
Tell him he may want to add it to the eggcorn database.
That sounds so dirty in that context. I have to go wash out my minds eye now. :eek:
I think it should be at least an A- as there are almost 100 times as many people unjulating as onjulating.
Gah! That’s exactly what I thought of! And that stupid commercial immediately started running through my head!
I can bring home the bacon,
Fry it up in a pan,
And never ever let you forget you’re a man!
'Cause I’m a wooooo-man!
Enjoli!
If there’s one thing that I really do envy about kids today, it’s that they don’t have that fucking song stuck in their subconscious.
How does he qualify for the term “editor?”
I’m not buying it. Nor am I buying it as meaning “doing something on the eighth of July,” as in, “we were onjulating, and Harvey hit a hole-in-one on on the baffling eleventh hole.” I mean, Harvey has never even hit par on the eleventh hole. He’s totally geshtunketa by the the tenth. :rolleyes:
What you do is take his head in the crook of your elbow and rub your knuckles vigorously over the top of his skull. He will soon admit that you are right, and at the same time, you will have taught him the meaning of the word noogie, which is in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary.
“Undulating” is a word frequently used in golf to describe fairways or greens with a “rolling,” rising and falling or wavy topography. “Onjulating” is not a word. Your editor’s source is an imbecile. So is your editor, for that matter.
Give him rolleyes from me as well. This is an editor?
For shame. For shame.