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

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

#321

Post by seabass-labrax »

lupire wrote: post #316
seabass-labrax wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia's summary of the situation, the French are to blame for the ambiguity - no surprises there! ;) But if we're going to avoid Americanisms, the better way is simply to use the word 'milliard', which makes perfect, unambiguous sense in any language.

Except that it's a terrible word because milli means thousand, and ard just means a grammatical modification. So all that accomplishes is conflating thousand with million with billion. (Of course "million" is already a conflation of "thousand"!)

Oh, good point... Right, back to the drawing board - how about "kilocount" for a thousand, "megacount" for a million, and "gigacounts" for a (short) billion? The prefixes were apparently resurrected from the Greek for use in the metric system, but haven't had any other contradictory meanings as far as I can tell. I know I'm mixing up the Greek and Latin roots with "-count", but "kiloarithmos" is two syllables too many!

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

#322

Post by jhbadger »

djur wrote: post #215
ajmurmann wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Unruffled" is an odd word. I know what it means but I wouldn't use it as the definition for another word. "Unfazed" feels like a stronger word meaning the same thing. I think people just didn't know what "nonplussed" meant and analyzed a new meaning for it based on the belief that "non-" was a prefix.

It's a bit like how people analyze "disgruntled" and use humorously the non-word "gruntled" to mean "to be content".

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

#323

Post by jhbadger »

Spivak wrote: post #199
vundercind wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Mostly the former, from what I can tell. People hear a “fancy” word, misunderstand it based on limited context, begin to use it where a less-fancy word would do (for whatever reason), and before long one cannot use the word in the original sense without being misunderstoo…

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.

Actually, the proles in 1984 used normal English (as we read in the scene where Winston goes drinking in the proletarian sector and chats with the old man about life before Ingsoc). Newspeak was for the Party members.

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

#324

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

gms7777 wrote: post #131
tremon wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. In my head, nonplussed was near-synonymous with unimpressed. So in my interpretation they were neither not paying attention, nor in over their head -- but the blank stare remains nonetheless. That still closer to your interpretation than "baffled, perplexed" as it apparently originally meant.

I always read it as meaning something like "unfazed" before seeing someone get corrected on it.

I also, from reading a lot of literature, took this meaning. I’ve never been a fan of the word though, probably partially because of the ambiguity being discussed here

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

#325

Post by sunaookami »

mnw21cam wrote: post #154
djur wrote: post #20

The word is skunked at this point. Using it guarantees that readers are going to have to pause and refer to the context, and depending on the context it may not even be possible to confidently disambiguate. Luckily both meanings have ample synonyms.

I think it should join "billion" in never being ever used again due to its ambiguity.

It's impressive how many "journalists" get this wrong when copying news written in English.

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

#326

Post by margalabargala »

naniwaduni wrote: post #306
margalabargala wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take objection to the characterization of "begging the question" having a changed/incorrect meaning. I assert that the "original philosophical meaning" is the fad idiom, and the common usage is a true parsing of the words unrelated to the idiom. "This begs the question of why X Y Z" is just a shortening of "this [thing you said] begs [that] the question [be asked] of why X Y Z". I think the only reason there's any…

You see a lot of this kind of thing: "spiders aren't bugs", "whales aren't fish", "strawberries aren't berries"—no, words mean things, unfortunately, even if that's a little inconvenient for taxonomers!

> "spiders aren't bugs"

This one is particularly egregious, because they literally are.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bug

They may not be insects, but non-insect arthropods are included in the definition of "bug".

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

#327

Post by gattilorenz »

denton-scratch wrote: post #230
dragonwriter wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This places pendants like me at a serious disadvantage; I can’t rely on a dictionary to help me win arguments about correct usage. First, unless you are dangling from a piece of jewelry, “pedants”, not “pendants”. Second, stop worrying about “correct” usage and worry about clear and effective communication. It’s a lot less useful and convincing to argue that a usage is wrong by some arbitrary standard than to argue…

> “pedants”, not “pendants” I noticed my fat-finger mistake, but it was too late to edit. > worry about clear and effective communication Oh, I do. That's why I object to using "literally" to mean "figuratively", i.e. the exact opposite. I mean, I don't object to ignorant people using words ignorantly; but lexicographers know better, and should be calling out ignorant usages.

Yeah, that’s literally the worst. I hope you also only use “terrific” in the original meaning (terrifying) instead of this silly modern usage… (joking, of course)

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

#329

Post by JoBrad »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #185
DamnInteresting wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all intensive purposes.

This is a moot point that should be tabled.

I've begun borrowing "it's a moo point" from Friends, in some conversations. "It's like a cow's opinion, you know: It doesn't matter. It's moo!"

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

#330

Post by paulddraper »

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".

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

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." - Genesis 2:24

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