More Definitions for howler. See the full definition for howler in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Words that rhyme with howler. Translation of howler for Arabic Speakers.
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Encyclopedia article about howler. What made you want to look up howler? Please tell us where you read or heard it including the quote, if possible. Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Do you feel lucky? Our Word of the Year justice , plus 10 more.
Howler (error)
How we chose 'justice'. And is one way more correct than the others? Literally something that howls or cries for notice, or perhaps Another common interpretation of this usage is that a howler is a mistake fit to make one howl with laughter. All over the world, probably in all natural languages, there are many informal terms for blunders; the English term "howler" occurs in many translating dictionaries.
Like howler , boner can be used in any sense to mean an ignominious and usually laughable blunder, and also like howler , it has been used in the titles of published collections of largely schoolboy blunders since at least the s. Boner is another colloquialism that means much the same as howler in the context of this article, but its other meanings differ. For one thing, boner is not traditionally used as a general intensifier or for specifically describing an accident or the like, as howler and howling are.
Assorted other terms have much longer histories and some of them are not regarded as slang. For example, Bull and Blunder have long been used in similar senses, each with its own overtones and assorted extraneous meanings.
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Bulls and Blunders , an American book published in the s, [9] uses the word howler only once, in the passage: Graham, of Annerley, has received a prize from the University Correspondent for the best collection of schoolboy howlers ". Although he did not otherwise use the word himself, the author did not define a term so familiar on both sides of the Atlantic even at that time. Mathematicians sometimes speak of howlers , mainly in the form of an error which leads innocently, but inappropriately, to a correct result.
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Terms related to howlers and fallacies include sophism , in which an error is wilfully concealed, whether for didactic purposes or for entertainment. In one sense the converse of either a howler or a sophism is a mathematical paradox , in which a valid derivation leads to an unexpected or implausible result.
Quine , that would be a veridical paradox , whereas sophisms and fallacies would be falsidical paradoxes. Typically such definitions of the term howler or boner do not specify the mode of the error; a howler could be a solecism , a malapropism , or simply a spectacular, usually compact, demonstration of misunderstanding, illogic, or outright ignorance. As such, a howler could be an intellectual blunder in any field of knowledge, usually on a point that should have been obvious in context.
In the short story by Eden Philpotts [13] Doctor Dunston's Howler , the "howler" in question was not even verbal; it was flogging the wrong boy, with disastrous consequences. Conversely, on inspection of many examples of bulls and howlers, they simply may be the products of unfortunate wording, punctuation, or point of view.
Schoolboy howlers in particular sometimes amount to what Richard Feynman called Perfectly reasonable deviations from the beaten track. Not all howlers originate with the pupil. As illustrated, terms such as howler need not specify the discipline in which the blunder was perpetrated.
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Howlers have little special application to any particular field, except perhaps education. Most collections refer mainly to the schoolboy howler , politician's howler , epitaph howler , judicial howler , and so on, not always using the term howler, boner or the like. There are various classes in mood as well; the typical schoolboy howler displays innocent ignorance or misunderstanding, whereas the typical politician's howler is likely to expose smugly ignorant pretentiousness, bigotry, or self-interest see examples below.
The howlers of prominent or self-important people lend themselves to parody and satire, so much so that Quaylisms , Bushisms , Goldwynisms , and Yogiisms were coined in far greater numbers than ever the alleged sources could have produced. Sometimes such lampooning is fairly good-humoured, sometimes it is deliberately used as a political weapon. In either case it generally is easier to propagate a spuriously attributed howler than to retract one. Collections of howlers, boners, bulls and the like are popular sellers as joke books go, and they tend to remain popular as reprints; Abingdon, for example, remarks on that in his preface.
This applies especially strongly when the object of the condescension and mockery is a member of some other social class or group. National, regional, racial, or political rivals, occupational groups such as lawyers, doctors, police, and armed forces, all are stock targets of assorted jokes; their howlers, fictional or otherwise, are common themes. Older collections of cartoons and jokes, published before the modern sensitivity to political correctness , are rich sources of examples. Sometimes, especially in oppressed peoples, such wit takes on an ironic turn and the butt of the stories then becomes one's own people.
Very likely such mock self-mockery gave rise to the term Irish bull as opposed to just any bull in works such as Samuel Lover 's novel Handy Andy. Similarly the Yiddish stories of the "wise men" of the town of Chelm [19] could be argued to be as rich in self-mockery as in mockery. There are many similar examples of mixed mockery and self-mockery, good-natured or otherwise. Throughout the ages and in practically all countries there have been proverbial associations of given regions with foolishness or insanity, ranging from the Phrygians and Boeotians of classical times, down to the present.
They are currently playing shows around the LA area, also playing shows in Mexico. Material was also recorded in June including Nygaard. On 13 January , Gatesmith announced the disbandment of the band, in replacement of his new project, Wellness. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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