Adjective – Slipshod
“Shod” means “wearing shoes,” and “slipshod” first meant “wearing loose shoes” or “wearing slippers.”
Today, slipshod things are sloppy and careless in a way that reminds you of someone shuffling around awkwardly in loose shoes.
Pronunciation:
SLIP shod
Part of speech:
Adjective: “their slipshod approach,” “this slipshod article.”
Other forms:
If you prefer an adjective that sounds more adjectival, you can use “slipshoddy.”
For a noun, you can use “slipshodness,” or my preference, “slipshoddiness.”
“Slipshoddy” and “slipshoddiness” sound, appropriately, much like “shoddy” and “shoddiness.” But the resemblance is a coincidence: “shoddy” has its own interesting origin story about crummy clothes, not shoes.
How to use it:
Pick this fun-to-say word when you need to be critical but a bit formal.
Talk about slipshod work and effort; slipshod rules and standards; slipshod grammar, spelling, and writing; slipshod habits, methods, approaches, and processes; slipshod accounting and record-keeping; slipshod reasoning, arguments, and thinking; and slipshod products, creations, publications, etc.
examples:
“The owner’s contractors were cutting corners. The building materials were second-rate and the workmanship was slipshod.”
— Ed Fuller, Forbes, 15 October 2014
“I have enjoyed writing detective stories, and I think the austerity and stern discipline that goes to making a ‘tight’ detective plot is good for one’s thought processes. It is the kind of writing that does not permit loose or slipshod thinking. It all has to dovetail…”
— Agatha Christie, preface for Ask a Policeman, 2019