Word of the day - 4 / 6 / 007
burglarize
• verb North American term for BURGLE.
I wasn’t convinced burglarise was a proper English word.
It isn’t. It’s an American word.
burglarize
• verb North American term for BURGLE.
I wasn’t convinced burglarise was a proper English word.
It isn’t. It’s an American word.
April 8th, 2007 at 12:15 am
‘Burglarise’ is a perfectly cromulent word, why does it bother you?
April 8th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I saw it on a news item and I have always thought it was poor english such as “skelington” or “drownded” which discredits the news source, like using poor grammer or swearing.
As it turns out, it’s an american word and so naturally sounds odd to me, but technically it is valid as it was in an american article.
I hope this has “embiggened” us all.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:55 am
I can recommend Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words and Mother Tongue - I particularly like the “British” words and phrases that are actually American (”stiff upper lip”) and the “American” words that are actually British (”garbage”).
In many cases the English are confusing middle-class southern English dialects with English, and when genuine English from elsewhere in the UK becomes popular in the USA they dismiss it as not being proper English.
Having said that, Burglarize is still a silly word.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Yes “burglarize” is a silly word, but if you say the following sentences in the style of Don LaFontaine the latter gives you the feeling that the house had been violated in some anthropomorphic way …
“They came home and discovered their house had been burgled”
“They came home and discovered their house had been burglarized”