As a Brit, I don't think I've ever encountered the latter meaning. I've only ever heard it to mean 'perplexed'.
As a non native English speaker, it’s my first time seeing or hearing this word.
What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
51–60 of 337 posts
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#52Funnily enough, as a non-native speaker, I always thought "nonplussed" was a kind of Orwellian newspeak (like "doubleplusgood").
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#53As a Brit, I don't think I've ever encountered the latter meaning. I've only ever heard it to mean 'perplexed'.
I always knew it as perplexed. I eschew this inferior recent meaning.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#54I've pretty much given up on trying to fight the evolution in the meaning of words. Singular "they" was one I resisted for a long time, but it's a lost cause. It still trips me up to hear it or especially to read it: what? did another person suddenly enter this context? I still avoid it myself, and think its use reduces clarity, but it is what it is. Word usage changes, evolves. A word or a different meaning of a wor…
No cap, fam.
Seriously, I think a lot of what drives these conversations is that people get a bit emotional about what are really somewhat randomly-formed preferences.
However you first encountered the usage of a word will likely heavily influence what you think of as the 'correct' definition, unless you work to overcome your bias by actually studying the etymology and comparing it statistically against current trends. Obviously very few peeps will be down with that noise.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#55"The common meaning of a little used word changed nearly 100 years ago." ...
The fact that this 1930-era additional meaning is being described as "new" makes me think that there might also be another meaning of "new" that I wasn't previously aware of!
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#56> Mistake it may well be, but the fact remains that this sense of the word is in widespread use today, and may be found often enough in well regarded and highly edited, publications.
I would say you are most likely to find this usage of that word in well regarded and highly edited, publications.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#57As a Brit, I don't think I've ever encountered the latter meaning. I've only ever heard it to mean 'perplexed'.
As a non native English speaker, it’s my first time seeing or hearing this word.
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.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#58"The common meaning of a little used word changed nearly 100 years ago." ...
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>
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#59As a Brit, I don't think I've ever encountered the latter meaning. I've only ever heard it to mean 'perplexed'.
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".
"Babe, we have guests, whom we use the fancy relative pronouns with."
Don't make me delve any deeper into pedantry ("with whom we use...")
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#60I 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 have never known it to mean anything except for "perplexed", as a hiberno-English speaker. But now that I do know the newer meaning I'm both mildly nonplussed and totally nonplussed about it.
Moi non plus