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

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

#251

Post by olddustytrail »

SoftTalker wrote: post #109
causality0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singular "they" was one I resisted for a long time, but it's a lost cause. I've had almost the opposite experience from you. I'd long embraced it as the correct word to use when referring to a person of unknown gender or to a hypothetical individual, but having to use it regarding real people caused me problems. When my wife became coworkers with a non-binary person and its usage came up every few days, the better I…

I have no objection to avoiding assumptions about a person's gender. It's unfortunate in my opinion that we chose "they" which is gender-neutral but also plural. That is entirely where the issue is for me. I'd have no objection to a singular gender-neutral word (which unfortunately doesn't exist in English). "One" sometimes works, but often sounds too formal. Or reworking the sentence so that "they" is approprate, e.…

You didn't invent singular "they" as a child, you were using it because that's what you'd naturally heard and picked up.

Then ignorant teachers told you that you were wrong and they were so successful in brainwashing you, that even after you have learned you were actually correct, you are still trying to argue you were wrong!

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

#252

Post by bxparks »

toast0 wrote: post #176
bxparks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yeah, never seen that usage of "cleave". I would have expected that sentence written with a different word: "People in the remote mountain villages still cling to their old traditions."

With regards to "cleavage", I always thought that it was based on the other meaning of the word, the one about splitting things apart: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cleavage

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

#253

Post by cryptonector »

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 was unaffected by the gift of an ice cream cone. I was unimpressed by the .. I was unruffled ... I was nonplussed ...

Exactly, if being unimpressed leads to you having nothing to say, then being unimpressed leads you to being nonplussed. If you're nonplussed then that might be due to being unimpressed. Thus being nonplussed can become a way of saying that one is unimpressed -- "nonplused" is a more impressive SAT word than "unimpressed" (which isn't an SAT word), so it's rather useful as a way to express just how unimpressed one really is: so unimpressed as to bring out a ten dollar word for expressing the level of unimpressedness.

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

#254

Post by bigstrat2003 »

djur wrote: post #224
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd have no objection to a singular gender-neutral word (which unfortunately doesn't exist in English). Yes it does. "He" is the gender neutral expression in English and has been since forever. It's just that politically correct people get bent out of shape about it.

It isn't gender neutral, it's a gender default. Unless you think it would be correct for the student handbook at an all-girls school to read "every student shall store his books in his assigned locker".

I do in fact think that would be correct.

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

#255

Post by gizajob »

foobarian wrote: post #69
slibhb wrote: post #23

First they came for literally and I did nothing because I wasn't a pedant. Then they came for nonplussed and I still did nothing because I'm still not a pedant. I sure hope they don't come for pedant next.

That begs the question, what will you do about it?

I’m fairly nonplussed at what has happened to “begging the question” - its usage now is an inversion of its original philosophical meaning as a form of fallacy. It’s common usage is a way of saying “the question arises”.

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

#256

Post by buescher »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #116
mbork_pl wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of related: I once heard someone pronounce "testicles" like a name of a Greek hero (think Heracles), just for the lulz. I found it hilarious...

Rhyming chipotle with aristotle is another good joke in this vein. You can mangle either one it's hilarious both ways.

Chipotélēs!

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

#257

Post by topaz0 »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #136
zarzavat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait… do Americans not say whom?

The Americans who know when to use whom and who and Americans who think they know when to use whom and who are those who use whom, while Americans whom the distiction between who and whom thouroughly confuses and Americans to whom whom is entirely unknown are those by whom who is solely used.

Oh it's a bit more complicated than that. There are also those who don't use whom because they know it's a relic of a case system that has been gradually fading for a thousand years. Not to mention those whom use it incorrectly on purpose to annoy the pedants.

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

#258

Post by spudlyo »

djur wrote: post #217
Spivak wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except nonplussed isn't a fancy word with pedigree, it's something that you would assume originated in 1984 as one of the words in the simplified language for proles.

Why do you say that?

Not the GP, but imagine it has to do with "Newspeak" using the prefixes "plus" and "doubleplus" for emphasis. Nonplussed may have had a similar ring to "plusungood".

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

#259

Post by Gimpei »

I don’t normally care about meaning shifts as it’s part of language evolving. But nonplussed really does bother me, as the new meaning is the opposite of the original meaning. So I often have no idea what people mean when they use the word. Is it so hard to use a dictionary? All you have to do is click on the word.

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

#260

Post by lupire »

gizajob wrote: post #255
foobarian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That begs the question, what will you do about it?

I’m fairly nonplussed at what has happened to “begging the question” - its usage now is an inversion of its original philosophical meaning as a form of fallacy. It’s common usage is a way of saying “the question arises”.

I sanction this comment.
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