Misusing words

prevaricate (to mean procrastinate or vacillate)
infer (to mean imply)
disinterested (to mean uninterested)
militate (to mean mitigate)
mitigate (to mean militate)
akimbo (to mean spread)
coruscating (to mean anything they like - I mean it is a nice word)

Decimate, I thought, meant reduce size BY one tenth. But I still think it is fine for demolish.

Recently especially - humanitarian to mean 'human'. Can you have a humanitarian disaster? I'd say only if an effort to help humans is a failure. It seems to now just mean 'people suffering'

I use "actually" needlessly and gratuitously. I think it's from listening to too much Pet Shop Boys.

Are you some kind of racist?

I also like "penultimate" for ultimate. The extra syllable is like fanfare before the truly ultimate thing is revealed. Who needs to refer to things that are one from the end of a sequence anyhow.

"Perverse" instead of "perverted".

pace doesn't mean 'vid'

I'm good on pace meaning 'against the known views of', but wat iss 'vid'?

words that do not say what they should: autocracy (should mean self-governing and should imply a limit to an individual, not a society)

my god people were pedantic little david mitchells in 2001

this complaint about how people are misusing "literally" if it's an intensifier or hyperbole or figurative is still repeated constantly and it's literally the most infuriating thing in the world to me- it's bullshit linguistics for a start but it's somehow become one of those shibboleths for people who fancy themselves lovers of language but care more about scoring nerd points by shaming people for using it at all creatively

I realise I'm basically doing the same thing to them so I'm just as guilty

on that note while it's not wrong I often get frustrated by how the most popular definition of "performative" has made a very useful concept a lot harder to talk about. but it's probably partly the academy's fault for not making their theory more accessible

"decimate" which actually means to reduce something to a tenth of its size

I think it actually means reduce by a tenth LOL.

But more generally I think it has come to mean cause substantial damage to.

does anyone actually use it either of those ways unless they're talking about how people are using it wrong? maybe there's technical usage I'm unaware of but it basically always means the last thing

a quick scan of the thread revealed quite a few ilxors who thought pedantry over minor misuse of a word like "literally" was silly. e.g.

The word "literally" seems to be the most commonly misused. I quite literally hear this a million times every day.

that's what set me off in the first place but i guess it was a partly a joke in that case so sure you win or whatever

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment)

Yes, exactly, reduce by a tenth, not to a tenth.

the soldier on whom the lot of the shortest straw fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning, clubbing, or stabbing

Sounds like some of the more extreme corporate morale exercises I've witnessed.

right but the other point is that the term has always meant violent devastation, it's not some "new" meaning that expands on the "literal" definition -- the definition is literally kill 1 of every 10

Maybe not "always," but yeah, Etymology Online traces the English use to mean "destroy a large but indefinite number of" back to the 1660s.

itt descriptivist vs prescriptivist linguistics: here we go again!

you're right, we should probably just lock the thread because native english speakers can't "misuse" words, on the contrary we need to document and indeed respect these fascinating new developments!!!

idiots!!!

native english speakers can't "misuse" words

I dunno. When I'd consider the euphemisms used by governments to obfuscate their more lethal activities to constitute a misuse of words.

the first times i encountered Decimated were in the classic MUD Realms of Despair. every once in a while you would **DECIMATE** the enemy. makes sense, now. on the other hand, I decimate my toilet on a daily basis, that's what it's for

Deuce-a-mate

idk who budo jeru is calling idiots but way to describe what linguists and dictionary writers actually try to do as if it's obviously the most ludicrous proposition

actually maybe I read sarcasm where it wasn't there - if so I'm sorry and fuck me for being so reactive

but words mean how people use them to mean the true meaning isn't what they used to mean unless we're specifically talking about history or etymology - prescriptivism might be useful if words are being used to deceive or hurt but that's about ethics more than technical correctness

i guess it's also useful when scientific and technical jargon uses common words in particular ways. but it's usually a dick move to insist on those definitions in more general conversion

I would like to believe that language has its own logic and systemic integrity and that language use could prompt questions and further inquiry.

yes, the post was ironic, but in character as a reactionary.

having said that (but without really wanting to get into it), i've found that so-called descriptivists can be just as odious as your garden variety pedant. the whole framing of the debate, it seems to me, is designed to make descriptivists look "rational" and "objective" in a way that i find creepy. in a malcolm gladwell, "just asking questions" sort of way.

in other words, not only am i unwilling to give up my petty gripes and annoyances about language, i sometimes find that there is an urgency to call out certain kinds of usage while steadfastly defending others, insofar as language is interwoven with the workings of power and central to the construction of our shared political reality.

OK cool I'm sorry

if gripes about usages are based on and reproduce elitism and chauvinism and hostility to linguistic creativity they're a problem - at worst they're about policing unauthorised forms of expression from the wrong types of people- and I hear so much of this that I overreacted and the tone went over my head

points about descriptivist pseudo-objectivity are well made and taken though and I might need to rethink my position slightly

Interwoven with power, yes.

Personally I observe many "rules" (and communicate in a pretty formal register) not because I think that sort of usage is better, but because
I work as a writer and editor. One whose children like to live in a house and eat food. Therefore the most important audience is whoever is signing my paycheck.

creative alternate use: salty

"Low-key" in current kids/tiktok lingo is constantly misused and it drives me insane. The phrase means "subtly" or "not obviously and it is forever used almost like "totally"?

"I was low-key angry with her!"

Trayce, I have generally been grudgingly accepting about "low-key" in current kid usage. But I _DO_ have trouble with using "high-key" as its opposite.

Case in point: My own personal child is a 15-year-old person who is Extremely Online. They live in a household with two English majors who are professional writers; there are approximately 7,000 physical books in this house. Not trying to boast, just saying that it is an environment that is deliberately literate. We value precision and eloquence.

Anyway, said teenager will say "I'm low-key into Genshin Impact" (or whatever).

Iffy, but acceptable.

But I get a trifle disconcerted by "I'm high-key into the new Black Butler."

Oh wow yeah thats grating, I dont think Ive ever seen that one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrbsGZJnbVQ

i like the "high-key" (mis)usage, it shows imagination imo

i am also a professional proofreader and rewriter, i like when ppl don't know the official codes bcz more work 4 me

i like the exploding chaos of imagination and invention that is language and i also like when ppl* are nudging it into some kind of shared agreed-on provisional (shifting) space which enables a degree of communication sometimes

*me, YMP

I agree that is, in its way, inventive.

My wife (also a writer/editor, and better than me at it) has an odd usage in her vocabulary that is a similar kind of back-formation from a familiar phrase: "second off," after having said "first off."

Like "First off, (thing). Second off, (other thing)."

It makes sense, but seems un-idiomatic to me. I would say "Firstly, secondly, thirdly" instead.

"Low-key" in current kids/tiktok lingo is constantly misused and it drives me insane. The phrase means "subtly" or "not obviously and it is forever used almost like "totally"?

I think I have some grasp on the logic behind this evolving usage. In the traditional meaning of "low-key", there's an implicit contrast to something being obvious and unsubtle. So if you are in fact, say, a fan of something despite the fact that you are not obvious and explicit about it, I think there is an implied authenticity and genuineness to your fandom of said thing. Because from where else would your fandom arise? Like, "I would never tell my friends this but I am low-key into daytime soaps." I can see how that (admittedly secondary) aspect of the trad definition - that those things which we are low-key into are the ones that are most authentic and true to our preferences and pleasures, removed from context - could evolve into the idiom being a general statement of enthusiasm and passion.

The usual complaint re mis-use or evolving usage is that it causes confusion, but how often is that genuinely the case? I'm occasionally unsure when people say they're non-plussed (are they confused, or unimpressed?) but I can't think of many other examples.

I don't think anyone is intentionally using "low-key" to mean "totally". My impression was that it always sort of conveyed a conflicting, emerging opinion or feeling that has a confessional quality to it. Compulsive overuse waters down its meaning of course, making it appear to perhaps mean something else entirely to the person overusing it, but I think I'm on the right track here.

low-key on the right track imo