Comments on: Good To Know: founder vs. flounder

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:06:07 +0000

Haha, I’m just pleasantly surprised that you bothered to correct the error on such an old post in a timely manner.. can’t believe four years passed without anyone mentioning it..

By: david (b) hayes

david (b) hayes — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:35:14 +0000

Good catch. It is hilarious how fitting that sentence was for a correction. I could claim I left it there on purpose, but that would be a lie.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 03:05:39 +0000

“None of them thought (or knew) to correct me, so I preceded to think that I had solved the mystery.”

You mean PROCEEDED.

By: Astrojunky

Astrojunky — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:44:03 +0000

@ judi - Joe Morgan is awesome. A great baseball commentator who is sadly hard for young kids, newbies, and East Coast AL fans hard to get. Joe judged a team by what they did not because of what their predecessors did. I will grant you that people are annoyed by his penchant for prattling on about how great those old players were but that is a welcome trade for the wealth of knowledge he brings to the press box. Mr. Morgan never kissed up to the Yankees or the Red Sox and a lot of folks hated him for it. But for my money he’s far more enjoyable to listen to than Bob “not a clue how the game is played but aw-shucks I love it” Costas or Joe “my dad Jack was great but I appear to be fighting through a coma” Buck…or is that floundering through a coma?

By: judi

judi — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:18:05 +0000

“Except that, now, just about everyone seems to think it means just that, and common usage is beating out correct English.”

Ah, unfortunately that is becoming the norm, and not just with foundering/floundering; i.e., as people flounder with proper english, it is in danger of foundering. okay - whatever.

How about professional journalists and sports announcers saying “yeah, he did real good when…” and people who commonly use “less” when it should be “fewer” and don’t get me started on….well, never mind. I digress.

I arrived here thanks to Joe Morgan, the only thing that stands in the way of my enjoying the Yankees on Sunday night ESPN baseball. He used “floundered.” I think he’s a moron. I had to check his usage. I was slightly chagrined to find he was actually correct and I hadn’t a clue.

By: Flounder

Flounder — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:04:21 +0000

Floundering is a time-honored method of catching the eponymous flat fish, that first cousin of the fluke, either by gigging or using a bottom crawling lure.
Excuse me, I meant to say “that delicious flat fish …”
In my childhood, when I enjoyed floundering near Cape Hatteras, “to flounder” no more meant “to flap about” than “bassing” means to suck at playing woodwinds.
Except that, now, just about everyone seems to think it means just that, and common usage is beating out correct English.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:25:41 +0000

Founder - To sink or to drop below the surface of the water.

You could say every flounder has foundered but has every founder floundered?

By: ak77

ak77 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:37:49 +0000

“There is absolutely no meaningful connection that can ever be made between the act of faltering, sputtering or failing and the tenacious and graceful movement of the flounder..”

Yep, that’s because that’s not what fLounder means. That’s what founder means.

Flailing yes, failing no.

By: leslie

leslie — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:08:38 +0000

There are possibly only 15 million flounder alive in the world. that is less than the population of New York City. Please don’t eat flounder or surely their species will founder…

By: bill kemper

bill kemper — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:03:22 +0000

I will never accept that “floundering” is anything more than a perverse use of the word “foundering”. Pity the poor Flounder, maligned as some sort of sinking, thrashing creature unable to swim or float, doomed to a life of struggle. I have caught many flounder, and almost never by design. The awkward looking, but delicious tasting flounder is not easily caught, and to bring one home for dinner is indeed a pleasure, nearly equaling the satisfaction of catching one. These saltwater dwellers do anything but “founder” when hooked. There is absolutely no meaningful connection that can ever be made between the act of faltering, sputtering or failing and the tenacious and graceful movement of the flounder, either swimming free, or at the end of a fishing line.