Nobody come for nonchalant!
What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
71–80 of 337 posts
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#72I thought this word meant "bothered" in the 1984 sense of plus=good
i dont think ive ever seen the definition prior
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#73People use it as a synonym for 'unaffected'. Sometimes it is unclear what is intended, so personally I never write or say 'nonplussed'.
To be honest, at this point I think it's a useless word!
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#74Looks like the word carries its original meaning non plus
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#75Guess I have to add this to my list of "popular words that I have no idea what a given person means by them". It is interesting how they evolve and come and go.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#76On 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…
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...
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#77I'm doing alright, thanks for asking.
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#78Words 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. As opposed to "not knowing what to do"
And part of the problem is shades of meaning. Was someone steady in an unexpected situation? Or were they in a quandary and steady. Or were they just steady from stupidity?
And isn't it interesting how words abound for how people react to situations? And do deduce the same meaning as other people? Like the thing about Eskimos have 200 words for snow?
I was unaffected by the gift of an ice cream cone. I was unimpressed by the .. I was unruffled ... I was nonplussed ...
Perhaps to fully consider and understand nonplussed we must know what plussed means. I was affected ... I was impressed ... I was ruffled ... I was plussed?
Re: What's Going on with ‘Nonplussed’? (2017)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s one of my favourite words Wait, shouldn't it be the second one, right after _petrichor_?
A this point I'm just waiting for a Webster article how some people understand "one of" to mean "the only" instead of "a member of the set of". This seems to be getting more common
Good point, stupid me!