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RedRose · Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2735 Location: GuangZhou, China

Today I watched Friends again. I got confused by Joey's word.

Asked how his new girlfriend(a paleontologist, pretty girl) was like, Joey told his friends:"she is awesome! and she's acrimonious!" at that moment, the audiences laughed and Joey's friends looked shocked. I don't know why.

I just checked my dictionary, acrimonious: adj: Bitter and sharp in language or tone; rancorous:. why did the audiences laugh so badly?

mat · Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 29 Location: England

I think it might be taken as an insult. Bitter is usually seen as a negative word.
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advoca · Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 422 Location: Beijing

I think that to answer your question, RedRose, we would need to know the context. Joey is not usuually portrayed in the series as being erudite or knowledgeable about big English words. Acrimonious is not the sort of word he is likely to use in a conversation and I suspect he got the word wrong and that is why the audience laughed. It was probably a malapropism.

Do you have the script? Can you tell us the conversation before Joey said that word?

clonc · Joined: 02 Oct 2005 Posts: 45 Location: UK

If I remember rightly, Joey was trying to describe his new girlfriend Charlie (Aisha Tyler) who is very highly educated, and not being good at English the word he use came out as acrimonious (Malapropism - joke).

I might be wrong here, but if we had the script we could be more sure.

RedRose · Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2735 Location: GuangZhou, China

bud · Joined: 09 Mar 2003 Posts: 2111 Location: New Jersey, US

Here's the line from the transcript, near the end of the first scene:

Joey: Yeah! She is cool, and she's so smart! Her mind is totally acrimonious (which, being Joey, he mispronounces "amonious"). (pause) That's not how she used it...?

from: http://dmca.free.fr/scripts/friends/season9/friends-921.htm

Transcripts from all ten seasons: http://dmca.free.fr/scripts/friends/

...

But amonious? It's not in any of the dictionaries associated with OneLook.com. Could this really be the intended word?

advoca · Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 422 Location: Beijing

I too have had a similar failure to locate the word amonious, Bud.

I have found ammonious (which is the name of a crater) but that does not seem to fit into the Friend's script.

The scriptwriters seems to have made a boo-boo here. However, I have found the word being used in postings in several forums, but not in any way that I can make sense out of.

RedRose · Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2735 Location: GuangZhou, China

IMHO, the word amonious simply dosen't exist. take a look at the script: Her mind is totally acrimonious (which, being Joey, he mispronounces "amonious"). (pause) That's not how she used it...? , see? Joey mispropronounces the word acrimonious as amonious. actually, no amonious!'

Am I right?

bud · Joined: 09 Mar 2003 Posts: 2111 Location: New Jersey, US

No, Red. As Advoca and Clonc said, Joey said "acrimonious" while the word he should have said was something that has a similar pattern of sound. The transcript suggested the actual word should have been "amonious." But since that may not be a real word, and certainly is not a well-known word, the transcript is probably wrong.

It's a great idea that he said "amonious" for "acrimonious." It makes much more (English) sense that way. But it isn't logical. He was trying to compliment her, but saying her mind is acrimonious would be insulting.

Note: That site contains dialogues that appear to be transcripted by a fan of the show. It didn't appear that they were the actual scripts. So i think "amonious" was the transcriber's mistake.