Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I'll Crank Your Face!

For the past couple of years, I have been seriously distressed by the use of the term, "crank call."

The majority of my life I had only heard - be it through actual use of the word or a morphing of verbalized syllables by my ear drums - the term "prank call," and it made sense, and I loved doing it.

The term, "crank call," however, doesn't make sense and it makes you sound stupid. When you call a person and tell them that their refrigerator is running or use any other equally cliched line, you are playing a prank, not playing a crank. I would actually really like to know what playing a crank would be like. I imagine something like this.

So after discovering the use of such an absurd term, I wondered if I had misunderstood everyone my entire life, and made sense out of a nonsensical term in my own brain, but was the only one doing so.

Irked

Turns out, "crank call" and "prank call" are interchangeable terms. This eased my mind slightly, but I am still perplexed by the existence of the unfavorable term.

Doing a google search of the term, "crank call," however, you will see that the first three, and many subsequent, links actually turn up with the word, "prank call."

Points for team Words that Actually Make Sense!

And for those of you who prefer your Cs to Ps when using adjectives associated with a telephone call meant for the purpose of making a joke at the expense of the person on the other end of the line, go suck a crank!

3 comments:

Seth said...

I must agree with your dissatisfaction over the misuse of common colloquialisms. "I could care less" in reference to not caring. What you have told me is that you could actually care less about the subject and, in fact, are more concerned about it than other subjects. You should have told me "I couldn't care less," referring to the inability to have less concern about the subject.
Discuss.

Andrea said...

Totally! I hate when people say that too! I also have an aversion to the term "crushing on" rather than "having a crush on." Seriously, why can't people just say things the way I like to hear them?

Crystal said...

On a semi-related note, these terms have GOT to go: hubby (for husband), tourney (for tournament), preggerz and prego (for pregnant), presh (for precious). Okay, that is all for now.