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What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

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Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#171

Post by 5040 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #91
talkingtab wrote: post #78

Words and meaning. This talks about how words come to mean something else. Nonplussed was "not knowing what to do". Now it is becoming "unruffled". But it raises a question. Do words evolve by mistake, or do they evolve because we need to say something and we don't have the right word for it? Unruffled, unaffected, unimpressed - for me all have a sense of ignoring a situation. Nixon was unaffected by student protests…

I think there are at least two forces that lead to words changing meaning: 1. We are looking to express a emotion but want to empathize it more. Existing words get "used up" because we tend to inflate the strength. This is how we get words like "sick!", "awesome" (which changed meaning quite a while ago). Either new words get created or existing ones get taken over. 2. Some people literally don't understand the origi…

Here's how Horace puts it:

As leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest fall off first: in this manner words perish with old age, and those lately invented flourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth. We, and our works, are doomed to death: whether Neptune, admitted into the continent, defends our fleet from the north winds, a kingly work; or the lake, for a long time unfertile and fit for oars, now maintains its neighboring cities and feels the heavy plow; or the river, taught to run in a more convenient channel, has changed its course which was so destructive to the fruits. Mortal works must perish: much less can the honor and elegance of language be long-lived. Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off; and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of custom, in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#172

Post by toast0 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #148
pc86 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry I'm sure there are a good number of native English speakers who've never come across it either. It's not exactly in common usage.

If it were in common usage, there couldn't be confusion over its meaning. The whole situation can only arise for words that most people don't know. Which means it's of particularly limited use to a foreign speaker.

Yeah, if I was a non-native English speaker, I'd be nonplussed about the word (both meanings).

But some commonly used words are confusing. Sanction means both to allow and to disallow. Literally is a nightmare, especially in written form, but also spoken without enough cultural context.

I don't like all these examples, but here's a list of 40 mostly common words or two word phrases that mean their opposite. [1] There's probably 10-20 of those that a new to English speaker is likely to run into. But then, I never got far enough into other languages, maybe this is a common phenomenon.

[1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their...

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#173

Post by toast0 »

ilitirit wrote: post #65

On a tangential note, one of my pet peeves is the way that many people (mostly Americans?) pronounce words like "processes" as "process-eez". Words with Greek roots that end in -is or -es generally use the -eez suffix. e.g. analysis -> analyses; thesis -> theses In the case of Latin, it's -ix or -ex . e.g. index - indices, appendix - appendices. There are of course exceptions and outliers (suffix -> suffixes; octopus…

Are we talking about pro-cesses or praw-cesses?

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#174

Post by thaumasiotes »

toast0 wrote: post #172
thaumasiotes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were in common usage, there couldn't be confusion over its meaning. The whole situation can only arise for words that most people don't know. Which means it's of particularly limited use to a foreign speaker.

Yeah, if I was a non-native English speaker, I'd be nonplussed about the word (both meanings). But some commonly used words are confusing. Sanction means both to allow and to disallow. Literally is a nightmare, especially in written form, but also spoken without enough cultural context. I don't like all these examples, but here's a list of 40 mostly common words or two word phrases that mean their opposite. [1] There…

> But some commonly used words are confusing. Sanction means both to allow and to disallow.

Well, technically, it means to allow or to punish. But you're close enough. It does have these two senses, they are obviously in tension with each other, and both are common.

But, because both senses are common, this isn't a source of confusion. (And the later sense of punishment did not arise from confusion on the part of speakers, as is the case for nonplussed.)

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#175

Post by kibwen »

mikestew wrote: post #152
kibwen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I assume without evidence that it's way more common in British English, because over here it feels like an exotic word that people only pull out to be semi-fancy, like "whom".

like an exotic word that people only pull out to be semi-fancy, like "whom" Semi-fancy? Man, that's a pretty low bar for fifty-cent words. I use it so I sound like I actually went to school and paid attention. If those with whom I speak find basic grammar fancy, that's on them.

What makes the latter sentence sound highfalutin is that you've been required to contort it away from idiomatic American English sentence structure in order to force in a "whom". The usual way of phrasing the sentence avoids "who" entirely: "If the people I speak with" or "If the people I'm talking to".

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#176

Post by toast0 »

bxparks wrote: post #40
jawns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merriam-Webster has its own entry about just that topic: words that are their own antonyms! https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-own-opposites

That was a fascinating article. > Cleave is often cited as the go-to contronym: it can refer to splitting something apart and to uniting two things Weird, I cannot remember ever seeing "cleave" used to mean "uniting two things". "Inflammable" is my go-to example of a word that shouldn't exist in the English language. Causes too much confusion. I always use "flammable" and "nonflammable".

> Weird, I cannot remember ever seeing "cleave" used to mean "uniting two things".

Here's an example I stole from the internet [1] "People in the remote mountain villages still cleave to their old traditions."

I'll leave other examples of cleavage meaning two things coming together to your imagination.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cleave-t...

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#177

Post by carabiner »

wongarsu wrote: post #13
jtbayly wrote: post #8

I think I've always assumed it meant "unimpressed." That is not the "new" meaning under discussion, but they seem to hint at it when they say, "This new sense appears to stem from a mistaken belief that the first three letters of nonplus are there to indicate that someone is something other than “plussed” (although what being plussed would entail here remains a mystery)." I bet my meaning is the next change to this s…

That meaning is actually already in webster, together with "not surprised, not bothered" which is probably what the articled describes as unruffled [1]. Not sure why the article pretends like they haven't already added the "new" meaning to their dictionary. Maybe it happened after the article came out 1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonplussed

"NOTE: The use of nonplussed to mean 'unimpressed' is an Americanism that has become increasingly common in recent decades and now appears frequently in published writing. It apparently arose from confusion over the meaning of nonplussed in ambiguous contexts, and it continues to be widely regarded as an error."

Read: only dumb people use it this way.

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#178

Post by toast0 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #100
awesomeideas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were around in the time of Shakespeare!? Wow, what was it like back then, hearing the Bard himself use the singular they? https://archive.is/A8h4J >

My current favourite instance of singular 'they' is in the KJV translation of the Book of Job – specifically, the end of chapter 15. The authors used generic 'he' throughout, until they got to a bit they'd have to translate as "his womb". Clearly this was a wee bit radical of a concept for the authors, because they chose instead to write "their belly prepareth deceit". Also, since it's a religious text, this is a sla…

I don't know if translations really count as the Word of God. If so, how do we know which translation when they differ?

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#179

Post by nicoburns »

vsnf wrote: post #159
nicoburns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purposefully and unapologetically try to refer to everyone as "they" these days. A person's gender is rarely relevant (and can often lead to stereotyping), so I see no need to mention it every time I refer to them. And it makes life a lot simpler.

While not strictly improper, this feels needlessly confrontational and pushing of an ideology. You might find you ruffle more feathers than you think by doing this.

Some people seem not to like it (most don't care), but nothing else gets special treatment in language (one doesn't refer to people of different races using different pronouns for example - there are special titles like sir/lord/reverend, but I try to avoid those too), and I think it's good to challenge people's assumptions around this kind of thing.

Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)

#180

Post by mauvehaus »

ilitirit wrote: post #112
DFHippie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless - IMO - you want to sound like a snob... Really? I think it's the opposite. One does things like this because one is afraid of being assailed by pedants and made to feel inferior. This is why, I think, I hear people, mostly British, say things like "to so-and-so and I". They're afraid to use the wrong form or the pronoun and be scolded, so they overcorrect. And about this: > in general language evolves to ha…

> One does things like this because one is afraid of being assailed by pedants and made to feel inferior. Do you pronounce "tortoise" like "bourgeoise" because you don't want to sound inferior? I jest, but it's like your argument is making my case for me. Replace "snob" with "pedant" to see what I mean.

One of the comediennes on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me delightfully pronounced tortoise TOR-toys. Apparently she'd never heard it spoken aloud before.
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