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#1 2010-11-18 12:26:49

humblegenius
Member
Registered: 2010-11-18
Posts: 1

"Adismal" for "Abysmal"

I heard someone say “adismal” the other day, which sort of makes sense. Not particularly common, and especially hard to search for since there seems to be a surname of “Adismal.” But by searching for “was adismal” and “is adismal,” I was able to find a few hits, mostly forums and comments.

COD3 was adismal and looks like CODWW going the same way

Another band which is adismal is Arcade Fire. Most indie bands are so rubbish.

for DVE and RenderFarm the framebuffer readback speed is adismal

did any one see his perfomance agaisnted leed’s today?? he was adismal! granted he played at centerback but still!!!!

rob your last vid was adismal

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#2 2010-11-18 12:51:27

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2752
Website

Re: "Adismal" for "Abysmal"

No need to be so humble, genius! Welcome to the forum.
.
This is another good one, in my opinion. Abysmal so often these days has nothing to do with the (or any) Abyss, and only means something like ‘very bad/poor/unpromising/etc.’, that a dismal version of it works quite well. (There are quite a few hits with the spelling adysmal, btw.)
.
C.S. Lewis, in his excellent Studies in Words , says that

the greatest cause of verbicide is the fact that most people are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. Hence the tendency of words to become less descriptive and more evaluative; then to become evaluative, while still retaining some hint of the sort of goodness or badness implied; and to end up by being purely evaluative—useless synonyms for good or for bad .

Something like that goes on with words coming to mean “extremely”: awfully abysmally terribly horribly bad though it is, they become(near)useless synonyms for very .

Due to adysmally low level of income and life style, the use of sanitary latrine has been nelighible.

Successful gay marriages will only amplify how adysmally straight people have denigrated the instution of marriage with divorce rates, quickie marriages

the revelation that the real figures (and not the ones newlabour choose to present) are truly, adysmally bad.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-11-21 14:08:46)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#3 2010-11-20 22:23:02

jorkel
Eggcornista
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1456

Re: "Adismal" for "Abysmal"

This is a good eggcorn.

As a sidenote, I recall an occasion long ago where my brother referred to something as “bismal” ... which I suppose is the other way one could conflate “dismal” and “abysmal.”

Last edited by jorkel (2010-11-20 22:24:44)

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#4 2010-11-21 09:09:11

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2752
Website

Re: "Adismal" for "Abysmal"

jorkel wrote:

“bismal” ... which I suppose is the other way one could conflate “dismal” and “abysmal.”

Nice!


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#5 2013-05-11 10:24:25

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2752
Website

Re: "Adismal" for "Abysmal"

An eggcornish variant:

The 100 year old Income Tax is a bismal failure. It is unfair and the only ones who benefit from it are
congressional lobbyist and congressmen

Forum Post: The Obama presidency is a bismal failure and a hoax

His first term was a bismal failure to me…I expected a much more fiscally conservative approach to
government, cuts in Government

My only marriage was a bismal failure, uh, I mean, a great learning opportunity.

They also show up spelled bysmal and a bysmal .


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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