Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

https://youtu.be/M-iwT86kIWo

The misuse/misunderstanding of "nonplussed." I searched the thread convinced this would already be mentioned but there's just one use of it in here and it's incorrect. "Nonplussed" does not mean indifferent, aloof, or disinterested. It means surprised/perplexed/confused. OED:

1. So surprised and confused that one is unsure how to react.
‘Henry looked completely nonplussed’

the incorrect usage of the word is the second entry, listed as "North American / Informal." what a strange way of saying WRONG

Does nonplus perplex you? You aren't alone. Some people believe the "non" in nonplus means "not" and assume that to be nonplussed is to be calm and poised when just the opposite is true. If you are among the baffled, the word's history may clarify things. In Latin, non plus means "no more." In the earliest known uses, which date to the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with quandary. Someone brought to a nonplus had reached an impasse in an argument and could say no more. Within a few decades of the first known use of the noun, people began using nonplus as a verb, and today it is often used in participial form with the meaning "perplexed" (as in "Joellen's nasty remark left us utterly nonplussed").

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

wait until 2030 when both meanings have equal standing

language evolves, in ways we don’t like or want to accept, and seeing it happen is a marker you’re old

"Nonplussed" does not mean indifferent, aloof, or disinterested.

This is the first time I've ever heard of this definition, but I'm not North American and informal.

lol

I like to think whoever wrote the BBC styleguide entry on Americanisms did it in one sitting, filled with rage pic.twitter.com/5JFMmJE0tS

— Dave Lee (@DaveLeeBBC) October 25, 2017

but then it ends with ‘eg’ followed by ‘etc.’

showwhatnow?

Never heard an American say "post a total" (of runs). What is this?

Shopping center & shopping mall are different things in America.

No American has ever said "to rubbish."

I shudder to think what might happen if I shouted OUSTER in the town square

robin hood wld punch you in the bollox

ch ch cheerio

wait until 2030 when both meanings have equal standing

language evolves, in ways we don’t like or want to accept, and seeing it happen is a marker you’re old

― mh, Sunday, November 12, 2017 7:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this isn't like the abuse of "literally." this isn't popular culture or the 'everyman' molding language. most uses of "nonplussed" are in writing by writers trying to sound smart and the fact that it means the exact opposite of what they think it means, and that it's so obvious why everyone gets it wrong, makes it particularly irritating.

I think the nonplussed war is already over at this point

I've been banging on about it for years

I can't describe how I feel about the issue

i'm thinking chalant

my theory re the misuse of nonplussed is that it sort of rhymes with "not fussed" so ppl think it means that?

similarly "craven" means cowardly but about half the time I see it used ppl seem to think it means something more like "brazen", again I'm going with the "it kind of rhymes" theory

I'm against prescriptivism in general but when ppl get the meanings of words wrong I reserve the right to drop a "you keep using that word..."

yeah, there's nothing wrong with telling people to use words malaproperly

nb I reserve the right but it's not like I exercise it often

basically if you're having a normal conversation with someone & they think "enormity" means enormousness you are a dick if you butt in & correct them, but if you're being subjected to a a prolix op-ed by some windbag and they keep making that error there is some value in being that dick

otm

You little prolix

I am on record as prioritizing audience-awareness and context-awareness WAY above right/wrong. In any given writing/editing task, I follow the rules that I think the audience cares about. Or rather, I follow the style guidance that tends to produce text that the audience will read without being distracted either by real, or apparent, wrongness.

Also I agree with wins. You generally don't help matters by correcting casual conversation but it can be enjoyable to point and laugh at windbags.

The crankiness level of that BBC thing made me smile. I should say that the USian meaning of "power cut" is a totally different thing - it's a physical feature of the landscape (trees cut down to facilitate passage of power lines), not an electrical outage.

"power cut" sounds like an industry term for something like a Rush song from the mid-80s

it's also a Wings song from 1973!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F-ISSGbTJI

I have never heard of tree trimming around power lines as a "power cut" in my life. It's just tree trimming.

or a specific hairstyle imp

mh, no, not trimming around trees, I mean the total clearing of a swath over a mountain or through a forest or whatever. In my childhood I definitely heard this kind of thing referred to as a power cut:

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/CNX0DE/aerial-photograph-swath-through-forest-for-electrical-powerlines-alabama-CNX0DE.jpg

Maybe this is a rural or Midwestern usage? Or maybe I was just among idiots. Which is not out of the realm of possibility of course.

ahh that's fair, not used to it but I'm from a more urban area, even if in the midwest

Now I'm wondering what other people call those.

"where trees used be"

in (UK) forestry they're called firebreaks

this is more for "use other words" I guess, but the cliché "much ink has been spilled"

& the less-encountered but even worse variant "vast quantities of ink have been spilled"

No use crying

"it me"

Oh Christ I just remembered an even fucking worse version

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wins stop wasting yr breath on that

You little prolix

By way of contrast and judging purely by ILX standards (which might deviate from the norms of the larger world), I much prolix.

wins stop wasting yr digital breath on that

Much digital breath has been expelled on shit turns of phrase

rectal prolix

inherited this from my actual architect friend who is irked at the hijacking of his field's terminology for software architecture, but the word "architected" still gets under my skin

you're designing or engineering architecture, you're not architecting, my god

I hear this all the time: "arguably" when "inarguably" is the applicable word. I'm not sure if this because of a complete lack of proportionality, if people get the words confused, or if they're being treated as interchangeable. Example: a news report I heard yesterday that said Da Vinci is "arguably one of the most famous painters ever." Well, no--he's inarguably one of the most famous painters ever; if you want to say he's arguably the most famous or the greatest, then sure, you can argue about that.

I'd prefer "allegedly one of the most famous painters ever"

suspect the issue there is nervous doubling-up of qualifiers - - - "arguably" piles onto knee-jerk use of "one of the..." with neither one having really been thought through.

They're the same word tbh

the different word is "unarguably"

I mean they're not the same word but it's the same sentence

tbh inarguably is a nonsense word in that you might claim that it inarguably means inarguably but it doesn't

It's flammable and inflammable that are interchangeable, right? I can't see arguable and inarguable as anything but opposites. (Webster's treats "inarguably" and "unarguably" as variations of the same word.)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inarguable

Unarguably isn't a word and I mean fuck a Webster if he argues otherwise