This all started a couple of months ago when Mario Rinvolucri’s lawyer contacted me and a few others about our use of the term ‘pairwork dictation’. In revenge we persuaded Earl Stevick to sue him over the use of the term ‘humanistic’ to describe language teaching. Despite Mario changing the name of his site to Inhuman Language Teaching, both cases are still pending.
There are also rumours that Mario’s lawyers think they are on to a good thing and so are trying to track down the originators of terms like “alibi game”, “board race” and “grammar auction” to suggest legal action. I’ve therefore employed a technical guy to replace all such common TEFL words on TEFLtastic so I don’t get caught up in any future cases. So from now on if you see the terms on the left, please read them as the terms on the right:
onanism – pelmanism
solicitation – elicitation
pairworm – pairwork
annunciation games – pronunciation games
tingle – mingle
find someone loose – find someone who
feeler – filler
communication burp – communication gap
We’re still looking for alternatives to several hundred expressions like “communication game” and “warmer”, so please let us know if you have any suggestions.
TEFLtastic 
I thought Petrarch was the first to use ‘humanistic’ when he was copywriter for early Italian cornflakes – I believe the slogan was ‘Kelloggi: the humanistic breakfast!’ I also think I might own the copyright to ‘tingle’ as I’m sure that’s a feeling I get when I try to move my legs after sitting awkwardly for half an hour or when I hear Man Utd have lost.
As for alternatives to ‘warmer’, what about ‘closer’, ‘ignition activity’, or the catchy ‘deapetheticizer’?
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Is this a late April Fools joke? Cause if it’s not I’m going to trademark all the phrasal verbs and start charging royalties to everyone who uses them.
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Is this a late April Fools joke? (2)
well, to keep the standard, “warmer” should be “foreplay”… or would that be more of a “lead-in”?
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Alex – do you think I should register the ‘Tefl Tradesman’ monicker?
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