Friday, June 06, 2008

Look It Up

Over on Language Log, there's a post on a Cupertino error related to the word "highfalutin"--the spell checker changed it to "high flatulence," apparently bcs it was originally entered as two words.



high flatulence


I would never have thought it was one word--In fact, I'd have hyphenated it.

I think I'd only use it as an adj phrase before a noun--"that's a bunch of high-falutin' nonsense," but never "his comments are always high-falutin'."

Note the apostrophe to stand in for the g.

(falutin' apparently coming from "flute," perhaps, maybe, sez M-W)

Would *you* have automatically made it one word?

1 comment:

Editrix said...

I think I'd have spelled it as one word. That's how Webster's spells it. I even think I'd have been tempted to use the variant spelling ("hifalutin"), though for purely idiosyncratic reasons.