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

merriam-webster.com

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

#191

Post by Karellen »

bxparks wrote: post #88
Karellen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Inflammable" is my go-to example of a word that shouldn't exist in the English language. What about "inflammation" (from the same root), like what happens when you bruise yourself, or injure a joint? Is that OK? Or you should you get a "flammation" instead? Edit: Or when interpersonal tensions are high, and a situation becomes inflamed?

Ha, you make some good points and I would be ok with those words. But just because the root word (inflame) and some of its derived words are useful, that doesn't mean that we need to allow all possible prefix and suffix derivations of that root word.

Wow. You really want some arbiter of which words are "allowed" or not? That sounds like some real Ministry of Truth type shit. It seems especially weird on a tech site, when tech jargon has historically been rich with wordplay and word construction.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/introduction.html

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html

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

#192

Post by jrgoff »

ryandrake wrote: post #144
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…

I think what's happening today is almost all #2, but I'd argue it's not really that language is evolving, but just that people are continuously making mistakes, and somehow correcting them has become this weird taboo. You're a pedant or "grammar Nazi" for pointing out incorrect usage and grammar, so nobody learns and people keep making the same mistakes again and again. Language evolves, but it evolves very slowly. M…

From the article - "nonplus" evolved from a noun to a verb within the frame of the late 16th century to the early 17th century. A fairly short stretch of years.

Also I think we probably have far more literacy over the time frame of this nonplussed change than at pretty much any other time in history. So it seems strange to me to blame these shifts on illiteracy.

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

#193

Post by Davidzheng »

carabiner wrote: post #177
wongarsu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

that's not at all what they are trying to say....

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

#194

Post by vundercind »

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?

As per prior behavior, the poster’s actions against this will be comprised of nothing.

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

#195

Post by datadrivenangel »

parpfish wrote: post #133
elicash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am excited to start slipping "plussed" casually into conversation.

You should be thankful your coworkers don’t already say that the “plus one” an idea/comment

I would be so nonplussed by this.

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

#196

Post by da_chicken »

adamc wrote: post #111
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…

I admit to not understanding why people assume meanings rather than look them up.

The context in which a word is used is typically more informative than the meaning in the dictionary. For example, "set" has an unreasonably large number of definitions [0] but I can't remember the last time its usage in a sentence was confusing.

It's also why "cromulent" from The Simpsons had a clear meaning during the episode that coined the word even though it did not exist prior to the episode airing.

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set

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

#197

Post by vundercind »

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…

> 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 misunderstood by most audiences.

This typically results in reduced space for expression, as a distinct word with its own shades of meaning is turned into just “fancy [other word or phrase]”.

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

#199

Post by Spivak »

vundercind wrote: post #197
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…

> 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.

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

#200

Post by da_chicken »

zarzavat wrote: post #84
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".

Wait… do Americans not say whom?

We do, but "who" is acceptable in both tenses. There's no reason to ever use "whom" because it's the only one you can use wrong.

"To whom did you give the book?" is more often "Who'd you give the book to?" complete with the similarly forbidden preposition.

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