The first time it appeared in an email, I had to look it up

Somehow it never showed up in any of my business or personnal emails back in France. I sure felt stupid at the time!

Yes on both counts.

I usually try to determine the entymology of a word before or shortly after I start using it.  I dont know the tool one.  I have never used it!

I'm with you JillUser - tool = dick. That's the only way I've heard it used as a slang term. Brad's version is for those who speak English right proper.

I always get irked by people who use words like irregardless, that sound good but aren't actually words. The public service is full of it.

Or "I could care less" - they do not realize what they are saying!

Or "same difference" when comparing 2 things!  Duh!  You need 3 for that to work!

Yeah, I'm pretty aware of my terms.  I'll look'em up if they don't make sense the first time around...if all else fails, then I use context clues and get a general idea.

I can be quite anal about words too.   Well, in English anyway.  My Spanish probably comes off a little weird at times- not fluent, unfortunately.

~Zoo

I can overlook the occasional misspeilling, unless it's some jerk who misspells something while calling me out on a typo. I once had some dolt misspell the word "misspell" in one of those instances. LOL

I've always been something of a word geek so I always know the true meaning, root, and slang meaning of any words I choose to use. Despite what many who read my blog may think I do actually put thought into my writing and I carefully choose my words so as to express exactly what I intend to say (and often hide jokes inside them by choose words with more than one meaning although few actual catch them).

I am often quite amused when someone tries to correct something I have written when it is they who simply don't really understand the words I have used. That doesn't happen often here at JU but does happen quite a lot on other sites. I get more than a modicum of pleasure from showing them to be the fools they are.

Yeah, I'm a tool.

How about "I have to dethaw (or unthaw) the fridge"

or

FYI which where I came from meant F--- you idiot.

or

the christian lady client i say who said she felt her child was under a demolic influence.

LOL (take it how you like) but seriously, we do use words differently and I believe in order for true communication to occur we have to take time (sometimes) to define what we mean.

JOA

Like here?

Sorry Mason, just couldn't resist. I know I am the last person to be correcting spelling mistakes here, even my spell check fails me quite often.

Yeah that's what happens when one tries to type out something in a hurry while also talking on the phone

I caught them later but decided "what the hell"

That is what i say too , as long as the meaning is obvious i let it go especially the way the editor of this "new and improved" JU works .

I think this one is justified to a ceratin extent. ATM is now used as a proper name. Same goes for NBC Corp or ABC Corp and even CNN Network .... those letters started as an appreviations ... then they grew to be a real name all by themselves  .. 

Usually that's what I say, as long as people get the point. I type with 2 fingers so I make a lot of mistakes.

LOL, I never thought about it that way. God knows how many times I said that. When I lived in Puerto Rico a few years ago, I thought it was funny how they called ATMs over there, considering that have the tendency of using English names and words over there even though Spanish is the main language. They called them ATH and I always wondered what the H stood for. One day I asked my sister and she said it meant "A Toda Hora" which in English means 24/7. I though the name was even funnier since it never occured to me to name an ATM "24/7" even though it makes perfect sense.

I often wonder if people know what PC (personal computer) means. Those Mac commercial could be a bit confusing, I mean isn't a Mac a computer after all and isn't it also personal so would that make it a PC as well? Or am I getting confused here?