Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

It's all about 'Free Speech', Isn't it f f? If usage is now a valid reason for change, then next step is to consolidate opening up gramar and speling to similiar acceptibility. Ness pa?

May wee! Language usage moves on. But I hadn't caught up with this variant until this afternoon. The issue is not whether it's 'right' or 'wrong' but how frequently it appears and when it was first used.

[smittims]

I do think it's a pity, though, when two different words, with different meanings, become confused in that way; I think the language becomes that bit more blunted and impoverished. I feel this with:-

uninterested - disinterested,

Oblivious - regardless

masterful - masterly,

and so on!

[kernelbogey]

Interesting to learn how usage overtakes one's personal experience....

What next?

One thing that's next, I've been noticing recently, is the increasing use - almost popularisation - of neutral vocabulary to describe something unpleasant or immoral. It's doublespeak (and I can't remember whether that is Orwell or Huxley). I'm thinking of neutralise for kill, collateral damage ditto, situation emergency. They are euphemisms whose usage is designed to obfuscate, or to dull moral outrage. This thought was prompted by a police spokesperson in Sydney yesterday saying that the knife-wielding killer at Bondi Junction had no ideation - then clarifying by saying that means he wasn't a terrorist. (I'm sure he had some ideation.)

[oddoneout]

One thing that's next, I've been noticing recently, is the increasing use - almost popularisation - of neutral vocabulary to describe something unpleasant or immoral. It's doublespeak (and I can't remember whether that is Orwell or Huxley). I'm thinking of neutralise for kill, collateral damage ditto, situation emergency. They are euphemisms whose usage is designed to obfuscate, or to dull moral outrage. This thought was prompted by a police spokesperson in Sydney yesterday saying that the knife-wielding killer at Bondi Junction had no ideation - then clarifying by saying that means he wasn't a terrorist. (I'm sure he had some ideation.)

Yes it's something I have noticed. It has the effect of taking a word out of general use, as the thoughtless/ignorant* adoption in one context(often incorrectly) results in too many people thinking that is its only meaning or use.
Or sometimes deliberate? Woke/wokeism has been taken away from its quite specific meaning to become what in many cases used to be covered(in the same derogatory sense) by the term political correctness.

[kernelbogey]

Or sometimes deliberate? Woke/wokeism has been taken away from its quite specific meaning to become what in many cases used to be covered(in the same derogatory sense) by the term political correctness.

Yes - exactly so.

[Pulcinella]

From the Guardian (no surprise there!).
Presumably they aren't stationary/stationery either.


A food company has won a sweet-tasting victory against the UK tax authorities after a court decided that it did not have to pay VAT on its marshmallows because they were not confectionary.

[vinteuil]

BBC News weebsite - "Prosecutor says Trump is flaunting gag order rule"

I rather suspect he is flouting it....

.

[LMcD]

When did 'multiple' start to displace 'many', 'several' or 'numerous'?

[oddoneout]

When did 'multiple' start to displace 'many', 'several' or 'numerous'?

When someone decided it sounded more exciting/attention grabbing than any of those?

[Serial_Apologist]

BBC News weebsite - "Prosecutor says Trump is flaunting gag order rule"

I rather suspect he is flouting it....

.

Not if it's a brightly coloured gag!

[kernelbogey]

'Even' is spreading as an intensifier, as in 'What does that even mean?', where it adds nothing to the substance of the question.

[french frank]

'Even' is spreading as an intensifier, as in 'What does that even mean?', where it adds nothing to the substance of the question.

I used it once like that. Having noticed and in rebellion against modish neologisms I resolved (pompously?) never to do so again.

[smittims]

I've noticed 'optically' emerging as a fashion-word. 'How's that going to look optically?' asks a presenter commenting on a government proposal.

[vinteuil]

I've noticed 'optically' emerging as a fashion-word. 'How's that going to look optically?' asks a presenter commenting on a government proposal.

... I dunno - I think 'optics' is a useful term - "the aspects of an action, policy, or decision (as in politics or business) that relate to public perceptions."

.

[AuntDaisy]

... I dunno - I think 'optics' is a useful term - "the aspects of an action, policy, or decision (as in politics or business) that relate to public perceptions."

Possibly better as spirit measures or Physics?