You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

[gnomi]

Here's one that I see smart, well-educated people using, and it drives me nigh on bonkers.

remuneration: Payment for work done.

renumeration: Not a dictionary word. Were it one, it would likely mean "the act of renumbering."

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Or the act of counting again (re-enumerating).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Or the act of changing the numerator of a fraction.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I have seen the source of your post and, yes, I understand. I know this person knows better.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

That was just the most recent in a string of uses. But, yes, it was the cause of today's post.

[madfilkentist]

Sometimes the mind knows better than the fingers but the fingers get there first. The number of times I've mistyped "file" as "filk" and then had to correct it is alarming. With a big word it's easier not to notice.

[ckd]

If your remuneration is renumerated, that may be good or it may be bad. (Cue the gags about the email that went out from "Google Wage" reminding people that Wave is being shut off soon.)

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I actually thought Word #2 was a word with the exact definition you provided. :)

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this was popularized by the soundtrack to Mary Poppins? I'm pretty sure Bert says 'renumeration' in Pavement Artist instead of 'remuneration' or at least, it's garbled enough by accent to be mistaken for 'renumeration' perhaps because he's supposed to be using the word incorrectly, due to the fact that he hasn't really been to school, despite being very smart. It might be sheer reader's disease on his part, but the fact that it's immortalized in a lyric that a lot of us absorbed in our childhoods might enough to spread it into the cracks of the language.

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Sounds like "remuneration" to me. But judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T06v_yy6uFs

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I listened to the audio recording yesterday before posting. I think he gets through the word very quickly. It does sound like he's actually saying it properly, but I can hear how people might Mondegreen it if they don't know the word yet.

So much for my theory.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Huh. Those are not words I would choose to use in my writing, but in my head I had the definitions switched. (I had some language processing trouble as a child.)
Learn something new every day. :)

[adrsta.livejournal.com]

Renumeration seems like a natural word to use in computer programming. That which it would logically refer to is something that happens a lot.