Re: morosely for morbidly

Richard Bollard wrote:

[...]

Cliche leads us to expect "morbidly" but it really doesn't fit.

Richard, Richard. Just what *is* it with many of you native speakers of
English that causes you to be so *thick*?

"Morbidly" really doesn't fit? Christ Almighty.

It's "morosely" that doesn't fit *semantically*, regardless of how some
of you natives try to twist reality and find excuses for that writer's
misuse of "morosely."

"Morbid" and "morose" are in two different, unrelated semantic fields;
they are not (near-)synonyms. "Morosely" and "overweight" (fat, obese,
etc.) *do not go together*, period. "Morosely" *cannot* modify
"overweight" -- unless you have a tin ear and a tin brain.

"Morbidly" and "overweight" *do go together*, otherwise "morbidly
overweight" and the much more common "morbidly obese" would not be used
zillions of times by physicians and others and thus have become "clichés".

Not that *I* ever need Google to back me up on common-sense language
matters, but just for the hell of it:

"morbidly overweight" ....... 958
"morbidly obese" ........ 482,000
"morosely overweight" ......... 3 (from that review) <--- !!!
"morosely obese" ............. 33 (used by morons)

Q.E.D.

"Morosely overwight" is a poor construction

Thank you.

and we are only guessing at what was intended.

"Morbidly overweight," of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This isn't the first time that native speakers of English have acted
like South-African morons in matters related to their language. The
most infamous case in AUE is the endless debate over "to have another
thing coming."

For weeks and months a number of morons insisted (and they still do)
that the correct phrase is "to have another thinK coming." This is so
utterly stupid I could scream, and for this reason I never participated
in that idiotic debate by morons who have far too much time on their
hands and not enough brains in their skulls.

"To have another thing coming" means "to have something else/different
coming." Period. No debate about the idiotic "think" variant
necessary. Those still claiming that "another think" is correct are
mindless morons who ought to listen to foreigners who know more about
English than they do.

~~~ Rey ~~~
A Foreigner
.

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