people who say "revert" when they mean "reply"

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I mean, I got this mail from my boss asking me to revert to him by the end of the week. As I have never been him, how can I go back to being him?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 18:20 (twenty-three years ago)

kick his ass

― DG (D_To_The_G), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 18:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know, but I got quite confused last week when reading a book where they kept refering to homosexuals as "inverts". It took me a while to figure out what they were talking about...

― kate, Tuesday, 5 November 2002 18:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Momus to thread...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Dud. Dud dud dud dud dud dud dud dud. Show them a dictionary. Fight the plague! Or one day we'll wake up, and the cats will be in charge! Or something.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 21:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Aww, I just want to tickle our cute widdle kitty-overlords under the chin.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 21:37 (twenty-three years ago)

and then revert to our kitty-selves. Meowr.

― felicity (felicity), Tuesday, 5 November 2002 21:54 (twenty-three years ago)

it's a total dud, but i reckon unstoppable and will soon become one of those words like presently and jejeune that few people use in the previously prescribed way.

― angela (angela), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Yer just lucky he didn't want you to revert by close of play.

― tigerclawskank, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 10:19 (twenty-three years ago)

er, what is the correct meaning of "presently"?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

'Presently' = in a short while. Misuse I guess is taking it to mean 'currently'. Anyone?

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:32 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the mix-up comes from confusing 'presently' with 'at present', which does mean 'currently'.

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

JEJUNE, for heaven's sake

― Sam (chirombo), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I have never heard anyone use 'revert' for 'reply. Perhaps it is an Irish thing.

My main gripe:

People who say 'infer' to mean 'imply'. IT IS A USEFUL DISTINCTION.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

And 'prevaricate' to mean 'procrastinate'

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

And 'obtuse' to mean 'awkward' (or maybe 'abstruse')

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:42 (twenty-three years ago)

ah now, sam, don't be getting as upset about a typo as we all do about the misuse of revert.

liz :x and madchen's explanations of the misuse of 'presently' are OTM.

― angela (angela), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:42 (twenty-three years ago)

And 'nonplussed' to mean 'unimpressed'

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

And 'fey' to mean 'coy'

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

And 'momentarily' to mean 'in a moment'. (whatever mark s says)

― Sam (chirombo), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:44 (twenty-three years ago)

and "disinterested" to mean "uninterested." Maybe that's a British thing.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:45 (twenty-three years ago)

No, that's the grandaddy of them all.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry, didn't mean to be snippy. Some people do say jejeune though. Some people say it with soft j's too, which is unforgivable.

― Sam (chirombo), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

People who say sex when they mean love.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:47 (twenty-three years ago)

I am irritated by more of these mixups than I can possibly type in the time I have remaining at work today. Or the time I have remaining in my life. So I tend to breathe deeply and walk away from the fool in question. I do yell at the TV when I'm feeling mentally strong, though. Damn their eyes.

I did write 'co-ordinate' earlier in some minutes when I had a momentary mental block over 'implement', so I = the antichrist, but only to myself. Damn my eyes.

Damn your eyes for good measure.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 16:48 (twenty-three years ago)

oh, and "comprised of" to mean "composed of." "Comprise" means "to be composed of." grr.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

and 'decimated' to mean 'obliterated'?

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 19:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I have never heard anyone use 'revert' for 'reply. Perhaps it is an Irish thing.

when I first heard about it I thought it came from America, like most bad things. But you might be right. It has spread through the civil service like a plague.

I wish we could reply back to the happy days of the past when people used words properly.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 20:02 (twenty-three years ago)

At least you don't have a close relative who sees things as 'ironical.'

― Marcy Matthews, Thursday, 7 November 2002 03:39 (twenty-three years ago)

"Penultimate" to mean "ultimate."

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 7 November 2002 03:44 (twenty-three years ago)

revert in that use = ridiculous workplace rubbish that has taken over the planet, like " i have taken that on board and will come back to you on it "
sorry?
a co-worker used to say that all the time, drove me nuts.
what she should have said if she was honest is " i dont believe a fucking thing you said but to make myself look good i will think up some tripe by the end of the week and respond "

― donna (donna), Thursday, 7 November 2002 03:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Phew, I've been using "presently" correctly.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 7 November 2002 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

All present and correct.

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 7 November 2002 10:50 (twenty-three years ago)

On another thread, Liz has just reminded me of 'amounts of' vs. 'numbers of' and this in turn reminded me of 'less' vs. 'fewer'. There are a lot of people out there who don't know what to do with a countable noun.

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 7 November 2002 12:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Speaking of which, I hate it when people say "data are". Yes, yes, data is plural in Latin - doesn't stop you sounding like a fuckwit in English.

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 7 November 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmm.. I stick to the 'amounts'/'numbers' 'less'/'fewer' rules but it's one of those ones that annoys me as I think it was just invented by some overly zealous grammarian in the 18th century. I think everyone had used 'amount' and 'less' for discrete quantities perfectly happily before then.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 7 November 2002 12:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Where is your proof?

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 7 November 2002 12:29 (twenty-three years ago)

It was something I heard on the radio. Sounded v.plausible. All rules of this type are as suspect as the one about ending sentences with prepositions. Language just doesn't evolve in that way. Someone self-appointed (or in France, state-appointed) person has to have come along at some point and said 'this is the way it should be' and it's up to you if you want to go along with him (or her? - probably not).

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 7 November 2002 12:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I forgot the most widespread of all (so widespread that I guess it's at that lexicographers bow to the common will stage)

Jealousy when they mean envy.

Julie Burchill taught me this one.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 8 November 2002 12:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmm.. I stick to the 'amounts'/'numbers' 'less'/'fewer' rules but it's one of those ones that annoys me as I think it was just invented by some overly zealous grammarian in the 18th century.

Hahahaha... as long as we're being fussy, "overly" is not correct English (it should be "over-") and most style guides I've seen agree that "as" does not mean "because."

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 12:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Well 'overly' is my dictionary without any note. Maybe it's another one that the lexicographers have given up on. I think putting over- in front of everything looks very ungainly (not a big fan of hypens).

Same with 'as' to mean 'because'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Also: Avoid "arguably," because no one knows whether it means "inarguably" (it's so good that it defies argument) or "it can be argued that" (you can create a very strong case for it). Although "inarguably" could also mean "You can't create a very strong case for it."

Just avoid "arguably."

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a stupid, filler word anyway. But I don't see it as ambiguous. Why would it ever mean 'inarguably'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Jody Beth - can you point me to something that backs up what you said about 'overly' and 'as'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Which dictionary are you going by, Nick?

The editors I've worked for were very particular about "proper" usage, down to the smallest details. But maybe the rules are getting more liberal.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:08 (twenty-three years ago)

I've just looked in three, plus dictionary.com. Collins, Oxford ans Webster's. The Oxford is the oldest and the only one to put any note by 'overly'. It says 'chiefly US and sci.'

I suspect you're right about 'as' - I just wanted to see something that says it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I think "proper" = "overly prissy" ("over-prissy" wd be wrong there for rhythm reasons) in this instance.

Fowler on As-meaning-because: "All good writers instinctively avoid it; but, being common in talk, it is much used in print by those who have not yet learnt that compostion is an art and that sentences require arrangement..." His objection is to the late placing of the word though: "To causal or explanatory as-clauses, if they are placed before the main sentence… there is no objection."

i <3 fowler

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll check today and see what I can find out. In the meantime, here's an alt.usage.english thread about overly.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Regarding "overly" -- if the alternative ("over-" or "too" or "needlessly") sounds too clunky, I usually just reword my sentence.

My personal objection to "overly" is that it sounds wrong: "Over" is already a modifier, and it seems stupid to use a modifying suffix on a word that does the trick without one.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:32 (twenty-three years ago)

overly is an adverb so refers to the quality of the activity, over is an adjective so refers to the quality of the result (that's a bit loose, but it sets the tone)

eg (to ref that alt-usage board) "overly cooked" and "over-cooked" mean difft things... the latter means put in the oven too long, the former means spoiled by reason of the chef faffing and fiddling around too much... (= the "ly" adds a note of judgment in re pretension... )

haha shortly i will be telling you of the difference in hue between grey and gray...

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:34 (twenty-three years ago)

ok ok over is NOT an adjective or anything like an adjective: it's a prefix....

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I've ever heard "cooked" defined that way, if I'm reading you correctly. Are you saying "overly cooked" (cook-as-noun and cooked-as-colloquial-verb, like "messengered") means "too much a product of the hyperimaginative chef-mind"?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:43 (twenty-three years ago)

But mark, that kind of judgement in re pretension sense is there in "over-written". No one says "overly written".

― Sam (chirombo), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:47 (twenty-three years ago)

yes:
"how was yr meal cooked?"
"with little verve but lots of salt" etc

ps it's kind of a joke, but it wz the first word they were arguing abt on the alt-usage board, that "overly cooked" sounded wrong compared to "over-cooked", and i wz trying to interpret why exactly

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Decadent used to mean luxurious instead of debauched is the one that bothers me. The Roman Empire feasts were decadent; all that hedonism and faux-glam on a base of corruption. It's like gold-gilded dog poo. Chocolate chip cookies are not decadent, President's Choice!

Real instead of really is really annoying. "It was real cold outside."
Bad instead of badly, and so on.

― Miss Laura, Friday, 8 November 2002 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

"overly written" wd mean you had scrawled it out long-hand several times, and handed them all in

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I am really annoyed by the people who come to the deli and cannot pronounce the foodstuffs. One woman asked for some 'cinzano' and some 'puma ham' (chorizo and parma ham). I get lots of people asking for 'onion bungees', and 'bearded or beaded ham'. The best was the lady who asked for some 'gucci armani'. Guess what that is.

― alix (alix), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:50 (twenty-three years ago)

ps it's kind of a joke

Figured as much, just wanted to make sure I understood you.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:51 (twenty-three years ago)

ps it's kind of a joke, but it wz the first word they were arguing abt on the alt-usage board, that "overly cooked" sounded wrong compared to "over-cooked", and i wz trying to interpret why exactly

If I were a food writer, I wouldn't say "overcooked" anyway, I'd say "rubbery," "tough," "dry," or some other, more descriptive adjective. :-)

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 13:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Also check out alt.usage.english for heated discussion about "muchly" and "thusly."

Fowler on "muchly" (a word that makes me CRINGE every time I come across it, and will continue to do so despite Fowler's history lesson):

We all know that 'much' can be an adverb, and probably most of us would
guess that 'muchly' was a modern facetious formation, perhaps meant to
burlesque the ultra-grammatical, and at any rate always used jocosely.
We should be wrong, it is over 300 years old. Its earliest use was
serious, and even now it may occasionally be met in contexts where the
point of the joke is not apparent: "Many players who were in the habit
of relying muchly upon the advice of their caddies found themselves
completely at sea". Nevertheless, as it seems from the OED to have
lain dormant for over 200 years, our guess is not so far out, and its
revival in the 19th century illustrates the belief that adverbs must
end in -ly. 'Muchly' does not often make its way into print, except in
dialogue as a recognised symbol of the mildly jocose talker, and has
been worth attention only in contrast with 'hardly'...

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 14:16 (twenty-three years ago)

And then there's the good old OED (quoting again from a.u.e.):

> You may be surprised, as I was, to learn that the OED marks 'muchly'
> as '*now* jocular' (my emphasis). That implies that you could once
> have used the word week in, week out without causing so much as a
> wince.

OED2 cites the first use of 'muchly' in 1621, clearly in serious use,
but there is a gap in its citations between 1647 and 1881, suggesting
that the word might have gone out of use and been re-introduced as a
humorous usage.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 8 November 2002 14:20 (twenty-three years ago)

"To action" instead of "to do". An action, as in something that needs to be done, may be written down during a work meeting. But there is no verb "to action".

― bert, Friday, 8 November 2002 16:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh but what is a verb in this day and age of derivational morphology gone insane?

― alix (alix), Friday, 8 November 2002 17:22 (twenty-three years ago)

To quote Calvin (of And Hobbes fame), "Verbing weirds language."

JBR: my favourite ever word abuse was someone using "penultimate" to mean, as far as I could work out, "even better than the ultimate".

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 9 November 2002 19:19 (twenty-three years ago)

martin that might have been me (but not lately)!!

"begs the question" gets regular mistreatment.

― jones (actual), Saturday, 9 November 2002 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

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people who say "revert" when they mean "reply" - classic or dud?