Words we've ruined.
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- Let's explore the words that we've destroyed through misuse. And get your 7-day free trial and 40% off Blinkist Annual Premium here ➡️ bit.ly/RobWordsFeb24
I hope you enjoy this exploration of skunked, bleached and mangled words. In it, we'll discuss the words that have been misused to the point of rendering them useless! And we'll get expert help from Peter Sokolowski from Merriam-Webster dictionaries.
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==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
1:49 Skunked words
2:40 BEMUSED
3:27 NONPLUSSED, AMBIVALENT, DISINTERESTED, PERUSE
5:04 Blinkist
6:25 UNIQUE & LITERALLY
8:39 Bleached words
9:07 GENIUS, HERO, LEGEND
11:33 Etymology vs. Usage (DECIMATE)
13:45 ENORMITY
15:00 Historical changes (NICE, SILLY, WEIRD, APOLOGY)
16:20 Changing now (PROBLEMATIC, TRUTH)
17:17 Rob on his high horse - Розваги
🦨Leave your skunked and bleached words below! And get a 7-day free trial and 40% off Blinkist Annual Premium by clicking here➡bit.ly/RobWordsFeb24
The words Mommy and daddy
What amuses me is that literally no-one understands irony.
"Skunking" is how words transform as languages used to diverge prior to mass communication. A word like "embarrassed" in English means exposed to shame or awkwardness. In Spanish "Embarassada" means pregnant. Or the English word Arena means the floor of a stadium, in Spanish it means sand. Same latin roots.
@@j_vasey I'd like to see a *RobWords* video whose sole topic is the word "ironic."
Impacted as affected, simplistic as simple, cheers as thanks, brilliant as good or excellent, awesome as impressive or good, hella as very, fantastic as anything better than good, unbelievable as something that impressively believable, like as an interrupter in place of any unintelligible interrupter. “Revert back” (what other direction can one go?). “Free gratis”, “free gift”, and “gifted”. Don’t even get me started on the word “organic“. I’m sure there are others but that’s just off the top of my head or they’re not common in my social vocabulary. Some words are so grossly misused that I would not even characterize them as such, since it seems so obvious.
"My truth" and "your truth" troubles me far more deeply than mere linguistic sloppiness. I see it as a tool of manipulation and deceit.
Yes, that one is particularly loathsome to me.
Every time I've ever heard the phrases "my truth" or "your truth" I interpret it as opinion. So what may have initially been the actual truth has now been reduced to that person's opinion by use of the modifier.
Well if there even is such a thing as truth, the only things that fall under it are general facts like "it's raining" or "a thing x exists", if we increase the complexity of thoughts to choose from we would find that there won't be much, if any that every mentally capable person would agree on. So truth, much like simultaneity in relativity depends on frame of reference.
Goes along with this new political trend of "alternative facts"...
I think the problem may be that while truth is truth, any statement of a truth is still based on assumptions, including the meaning of terms. One example is the question what is ll + ll? depending on how you interpret it the answer could be 22, IV, or IIII.
I love the story about St Paul's Cathedral being judged "Awful and Artificial" by some royal at the time it was constructed.
Awful = Awe-full = Awesome
Artifical = Relating to Artifice = Showing high skill
Oh my gosh, I love this. 😅
Holy cow I didn’t know that! Thank you for sharing your awful artificial historical knowledge. 😉
And “natural” was an insult because it hadn’t had any improvement made to it…
...and there there is the Bible verse, which in the King James translation reads "Good is awful" (or "Good is awesome" in new translations).
Yes, "awful" used to mean inspiring awe. Likewise "terrible" used to mean inspiring terror; there was a Royal Navy ship called HMS Terrible!
I was amazed (though not amused) to learn of bemused being abused by those who are confused.
Never be disabused by the stupidity of people.
Are you Stevie Wonder?
Cleverly said!
I found this comment most bemusing.
Another sad one is "exponential", which used to mean something that grows by a constant factor for each step (e.g. doubling each day), but which now increasingly just means "rapidly growing", or even just "a lot". This leaves us without a word to describe "grows by a constant factor for each step". Thanks a lot, skunks!
I imagine that, when mathematicians use it with each other, the accurate meaning is preserved.
Is it not mainly the public metaphorical extension that tends to distort the meaning?
That could be the definition in math, but even in general use, wouldn't exponential mean something that grows at any accelerating rate? Whereas grows steadily could mean "growing linearly", growing exponentially can describe anything that grows at a variable rate, but generally accelerating faster than linear growth. Just some thoughts!
Exponential growth is not necessarily constant. You can raise something to the power of a function. The common use of the word isn't technically wrong
@@jenm1 By your logic there's no point in distinguishing between e.g. linear growth, power laws, exponentials, logarithms etc, since all of them are linear if you look at a short enough segment of them. For the terms to be useful, they should cover enough of the function to be clearly distinguishable from each other, so for example many doublings for an exponential function. And that isn't the case for the common use of the word, where there usually is no time span over which an exponential function would be a better match than a linear function or a parabola.
I look at "exponential" as one of many words that has both a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. The literal meaning of exponential is the mathematical meaning that you mentioned. The figurative meaning is "rapidly growing" as you also stated. In my own speech and writing, I try to use the literal meanings of words like this and to avoid the figurative meanings, because the literal meanings rarely cause confusion, whereas the figurative meanings can certainly cause confusion.
Exponential is also one of many mathematical terms that people use without full thinking through the mathematical meaning. For example, people will talk about something being "reduced to a fraction" of its previous number (or value, or cost, etc.). When people say this, they are typically thinking of a small fraction, like 1/10, or 1/5, or certainly something less than 1/2. But it always occurs to me that the fraction could be something like 99/100, or even something that would indicate an increase, like 4/3 or 7/2.
"Gaslighting" is a very new addition to the English language, but has already been bleached. Apart from the literal meaning of lighting gas street lamps, it means the deliberate and malicious attempt to convince someone that they are going crazy (from the movie "Gaslight" where one character did that to another). It has recently often been used to just mean lying, which I think robs it of its impact.
Yes!
It also makes real gaslighting often go ignored, trivialising these sorts of terms can be really dangerous socially
Interesting, the movie was made in 1944, doesn't take long for change to take place.
Thanks for clarifying. I could never get my head around the actual meaning of this word, but your explanation makes it clear to me why I was so often confused.
I haven't heard it misused, but I won't question you if you have. Wait, I take that back. You didn't see it misused. It was all your imagination. (hope the joke tone came through there)
the phrase "quantum leap" has been skunked from quantum physics, where it is the absolutely smallest change possible into the every-day meaning of enormous changes.
no its not. its what sam beckett does when his mind is transferred into another body at the end of each episode.
True. But when quantum is used in this context it is shorthand for quantum physics. So it refers to the massive progressions made in our understanding of physics when studing that which is quantum.
I think quantum leap is more like an abrupt change, a move from one state to another without going through the states (we would normally consider to be) in-between.
Correct @@eliavrad2845
I'm not sure if it would be "skunking" for a technical term to take on a metaphorical usage in other contexts. At the very least it wouldn't have the issue of ambiguity that the video is talking about. But yeah @eliavrad2845 is right, it's a step change as opposed to a continuous one, like an electron popping from one orbital to another. The fact that it's a "small" thing that we commonly use to mean something "big" is nonetheless very um ... *ironic*
"Acronym" has lost its meaning a bit. It is supposed to mean "initials of words that create a word in itself", like "taser". However, it is used for any kind of initials now like "GDP" which should be an initialism.
I think most of the words that have been skunked are due to people using them to exaggerate things. You’re literally a legend for making this video.
"humbled" is the one that annoys me. I hear it used in positive ego inflating situations all the time instead of the opposite. Being greeted by thousands of fans for your birthday isn't humbling, no one showing up is.
Such things are humbling if you already humbly don’t think you deserve them. And thus, getting them, rubs the humble person’s nose in the fact that he doesn’t deserve them. Because, “now” in such a situation, he can’t help but think of these things he doesn’t deserve.
A lot of virtue-signalling these days results in unwitting irony. People pretending to be humble are a case of this.
Oh, wow - the bit about "apology" also makes "apologist" make a lot more sense!
I have to admit that I always wondered why “apologist” was used to describe a person who defended an article of faith.
@John Runyon ---> Yep. See: 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 15 in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. reason / evidence / answer / defense.
yeah, and that's why we would rather have repentance than apologies.
In Spanish, this origin of apology is much more clear. Our only use of "apología" (hacer apología de algo) refers to vehemently defend some idea (now it is usually used with negative things to be apologetic about like "apología del terrorismo" -publicly defending terrorism- , which is illegal, by the way)
I've stopped using "apologist" because it's so easily misunderstood.
“Awesome” has definitely lost all of its meaning.
I guess this is the reason that "awesome" and "awful" now mean opposite things? Or not?
Cool!
It's certainly "watered down" into no meaning when everything from a dust mote to a to a statement inspires anoesis.
But there is hope. We have always had "awe-inspiring" which is much nicer anyway.
but thats a cultural shift, not really an "i dont know what a foreign word means so i simply use it wrong" shift. its similar to ...lets say japanese, where adressing someone by a high title was to show respect which over time somehow shifted to being derogatory since seemingly it must have become seen as ironically ... or in german the word "merkwürdig" = strange/creepy which literally is "markworthy"/noteworthy but no native speaker _feels_ this literal meaning, it is solely meaning strange and the notion of noteworthy does not even cross the mind even if it its partially in the expression. but that _was_ the original meaning, just that a cultural shift moved the meaning from noteworthy cuz something is particularily good to noteworthy cuz it is particularily abnormal
My favourite skunked word is "dropped". One of its meanings used to be "to be cancelled", as in: "Disney has dropped the latest Spiderman movie". Nowadays it means almost exactly the opposite: "to release". As in: "Disney just dropped the latest Spiderman movie".
Dropped is still used in that way, but I feel it was always more common in the type of sentences where the subject is omitted and it describes something happening to the object. Like "Brad Pitt got dropped from the movie". Altho, saying that sentence makes me think of another new meaning of dropped, meaning to suddenly get beaten up.
I dislike the new use of drop as release, because to me it always sounds like they oopsie dropped it on the floor. Silly, but more accurate.
The problem is that when we bleach words we often are left with no replacement for the original meaning and thus we lose a tool for communication. Many of these words are literally unique.
Not really. You can still get all the same meaning out, it just takes a few more words. It’s a bit more clunky but we’re not really “losing tools of communication”. Honestly, a lot of words get their meaning changed specifically because we weren’t really using them a lot in the first place. I mean, how often do you need a word that means “from, or relating to a legend”. Probably not often.
This is somewhat unrelated, but I wonder what will happen to “literally”. For now people have basically begun using it as a superlative but ironically if everyone exclusively uses it as a superlative, then it loses its impact, and then people use it less, allowing it’s original meaning to resurface. No idea, not a linguist. This is just conjecture.
…like “literally”…
@@azlanadil3646I literally died? 😊
@@azlanadil3646 but he has a point, the word being the tool, you just lost that tool, and now need another, or a few.
One of my favorite examples of this kind of semantic transformation is "terrific". Etymologically it's analogous to "horrific": inspiring terror rather than horror. But first it lost its negative connotation - to indicate only that something was exceptionally grand - and now it is used to mean exceptionally *good*. Which is literally ironic. ;)
"Wonderful" and "marvelous" had a similar shift of meaning.
Well, that happened a long time ago. They were using it that way when I was a kid in the early 1970s. I think that we can consider that word definition to have official changed.
Yes - like “frightfully good” - although that one seems to have mostly fallen out of usage.
"Tremendous" is the same. Tremendo", in Italian, means "the most horrible." "Gorgeous" could be another example. The Romantics were responsible for beginning this: they lionised Death, Suffering and dangerous gorges and mountaintops!
Same for awe. It's original meaning encompassed fear rather than just wonder and amazement.
My fav bleached word is Theory, which somewhere along the way got to mean both theory and hypothesis, it's much weaker cousin word. Which leads us to the dilemma of people saying something is ONLY a theory.
It’s just a theory, A GAME THEORY 😭
@@chinmustache6420 Someone had to say it.
oh that is correct... 'gravity is just a theory'...
Yep, I see it with creationists all the time
This is not an example of a bleached word. The use of the term use in modern science is not the original sense of the word. The word certainly has never been restricted to theories believed in by professional scientists. "It's only a theory" is said of many things other than scientific theories. But it can even be said of those scientific theories that "it is only a theory". It is completely possible that any given modern scientific theory may not be absolutely true. But again, the sense of the word that is used in scientific studies is a modern sense of the word, anyway.
i love that ambivalent is so ambivalent. i have seen it far more used to describe something being "either way" (so more like "it could be both" than uninterested or undecided... or "both at once").
In Danish the most famous skunked word is "bjørnetjeneste", literally "bear favour". Originally it meant to do someone a well meant favour that does more harm than good, but some people have begun to use it to mean doing someone a very great favour. So it have almost taken on its opposite meaning.
Decimate - I've always thought that people confuse "reduce by a tenth" with "reduce TO a tenth"; that is, rather than "one man in ten is killed", it's "one man in ten survives"; the latter being significantly more devastating!
That's what I thought too - like, I remember thinking that it *did* mean that before college, that "deci-" was just standing in for any small fraction that something could be reduced to, rather than to this specific historical punishment (and one about reducing *by* a fraction) that was later used metaphorically.
That's exactly what I thought it meant until right now.
but thats a global trend, most people will only know the "obliterate" sense and derive that from "reducing TO only a tenth", and dont even think it could mean to just reduce BY a tenth ... well , also cuz the whole concept is gone, our taxes are no longer only 10% (oh what a wonderful world that would be xD), so be dont think about "tithes" (which also comes from the word "ten/tenth") or the whole concept anymore
Worse yet, the tenth man was killed by his other nine comrades.
I think "decimate" still is used to mean what it meant to affected roman soldiers: "be subjected to an unescapablable, very painful, devastating and lasting change".
Even if "only" every 10th soldier was killed, that's still quite horrible.
I have a refrigerator magnet that says "Misuse of "Literaly" makes me figuratively insane" and I still smile every time I look at it.
😂😂
This sounds like something out of Word Crimes
Rob, some say issue (ish-you) and some say ish-you. Or: inishiate and inishiate. Is it regiolect or sociolect? Do you know more about it?
You're probably American saying refrigerator whereas most other English speakers say fridge, although I believe it's becoming commoner in the States. It interests me, as Americans always seemed to streamline and abbreviate words first historically. When I watched American films as a kid in the 50s, 'automobile' (technically any sort of vehicle, I realise) was commonly used instead of simply 'car', a much less unwieldy word. Also 'vehicle', pronounced 'vehirickle' in Texas and the South, is still used by some cops. Words are fascinating.
Do you smile because of the speling eror?
A wonderful video demonstrating how language is a dynamic, "living" thing. I've also read that dictionaries aren't rule books but, history books.
Precisely this. I saw a dictionary Twitter account point out that dictionaries record the usage of words, not their meaning.
@@SarahJay55Old and new usage both have meaning to those who agree on the usage.
This is controversial and ideological. Merriam has leaned to the left in their lexicography since 1963, embracing the descriptivist (how words are used), rather than prescriptivist (distinguishing between proper use and vulgar use) approach. American Heritage and Collins are more even handed in the descriptivist/prescriptivist balance. One should consider why most people actually pick up a dictionary-- to find out how to use a word, because they aren't familiar with it or its spelling. Since the way we speak is often seen as a social marker, there are benefits in knowing how a word "ought" to be used "properly." There are many ways in which people can make themselves sound like fools, but a common one is using big words in ways that indicate that one doesn't read enough to be familiar with them. (The opposite side of this error is mispronouncing words in ways that indicate that one learned them in various contexts of reading, but never looked up the pronunciation).
-- I'm reminded of the Monty Python "Hungarian Phrase Book Sketch." Though its a hyperbolic comparison, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary sets people up for clumsy, vulgar usage. And aside from that, their ideology has affected their lexicography. A few decades ago, I pointed out to a friend who is interested in these things that Merriam-Webster's excluded senses of the word "abstract" with positive connotations. Karl Marx's early works include rants against abstract thinking. There were several other examples of apparent Marxian sympathies, but that was a long time ago, and I can't remember them now.
-- In a broader sense, those who lean left tend to be anti- and ahistorical, and tend to judge things affected by tradition as obsolete, in the spirit of the intellectual arrogance of considering themselves clever and wise enough to figure out the entire problem of being human. It's not only the dictionary that they see as a "living document;" it's also the Constitution and any traditional code of morality. The body count of implemented leftist ideologies demonstrates the dangers of this approach.
-- And furthermore, manipulating language enables propaganda while disabling defenses against it.
@@grizzlygrizzle language is closely related to thought, and sloppy word usage leads to imprecise, sloppy thinking.
Thank you for that keyboard shortcut. I didn’t know that one. I always thought “bemused” was some kind of confused amusement. I think the same of befuddled. Like someone being confused but smiling to cover their lack of understanding. Their eyes are just a little out of focus trying to figure things out. 🙂
I refuse to give up using 'bemused' in its correct sense - bewildered or confused. One has a duty to correct its misuse.
I agree with your sentiment, but it is impossible to fight the tides of ignorance with regard to language.
Whenever I see/hear the word bemused I always had the feeling of a combination of confusion and amusement.
Such as if you hear something that could have two meanings, often contradictory or one of them rude I might feel bemused. Confused as to which was intended, but also amused by the confusion.
I didn't even know it could be used in any other way until I watched this video!
I had literally never heard 'bemused' used to mean amused until I watched this video. Yes, literally 'never'. Oh, wait, adding 'literally' literally added nothing to the concept of 'never'. Oh well.
@@chilversc Yeah, I don't see why everyone gets all up in arms about a word's change of meaning. Why have two words meaning confused when you can get more specific with your words and have one of them mean "amused bewilderment"?
I saw a line of medieval church choral music say "show us your will, prevent us Lord". Etymologically, to prevent (a "pre-event") is to "act in anticipation of an event". Thus to prevent a marriage you would send wedding invites, at least as per how the term was originally used. Fun things you learn at university.
It occurs in the famous BCP prayer “Prevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour”, and in that sense means “Go before us” or “Precede us”
So preventing, is like tailgating??
Sending invitations and warning against are both warnings
Nauseous and nauseated!
Why do I find myself trying to like your video several times over the course of the video 😅 several times over 😅
I loathe when people treat ‘utilise’ as a more formal version of ‘use’.
The distinction between the two is actually very helpful and it would be a shame to lose it.
Excellent example, though I suspect "utilize" is also the kind of word that is used by office staff to sound clever. I don't know what the term is, but at airports, one constantly hears "Please proceed to..." Why not "Please go to Gate 18"? It's much easier to understand. I don't know what to call this fake-formal register.
@@sherylbegby proceed is thru old french from the latin - pro cedere (forward go) Rob talked about the impact of French on English in another vid. Short version - the rulers spoke french so french means rich and fancy now.
When I copy edited one of my prof’s PhD dissertation, I changed each “utilize” to “use” (along with an explanatory note in the margins).
@@draig2614 You're a keeper.
Sorry mate, this is a lost battle.
I loved this episode for clearing the confusion on the use of the word APOLOGETIC; so it actually means DEFENSE instead of the SORRY which I grew up with... Thanks @RobWords
Oh, “fine” is another good one. We often used it to mean just passable now.
It's interesting that the Dutch version of the word ("prima") seems to be on the same path as "fine."
Or to mean "not at all fine" in some situations!
eh, i think it's new meaning is fine.
@@DantevanGemert That's quite interesting because German also uses "prima" quite often, but it still very much means "excellent".
@@DantevanGemert the Dutch version of "fine" is "fijn". I'm feeling fine - ik voel me fijn. Fine dust - fijne stof. Fine wine - fijne wijn. A fine woman - een fijne vrouw.
"Infamous" seems to be in the process of being skunked. I read an article once that described Tom Hanks as "infamous," and I was like, "What did Tom Hanks ever do that was so terrible?" Then I realized the author was just trying to say Hanks is super famous and using "in-" as an intensifier, rather than an indication of being famous for something horrible.
Much like the people who believe that 'penultimate' is an intensification of 'ultimate'.
@@daddymuggle Personally, I aspire to being antepenultimate, lol
@@nicolaplays1134 it's always good to meet such an ambitious person as yourself.
Antepenultimate is obviously better, as it has more letters.
LOL. Or "flammable and inflammable."
It should be noted that some authors might use words in a creative way for irony's sake. Like, calling Tom Hanks "infamous" could be tongue-in-cheek...
But then someone else is going to come along, not know that, and think "infamous" means super famous, and then that spreads and suddenly it is skunked... all because of some jerk being clever.
(Note: I definitely do this sort of thing.)
(Note2: I'm not saying that's what happened here, just that it's something that could happen.)
I am older than you Rob and I remember when the large fuel trucks you would see on the road would have a large sign that said INFLAMMABLE but at one point they changed them to FLAMMABLE I always assumed it was because the general public might mistake the first one
Dictionaries describe. Ideally, nobody prescribes (let alone proscribes) the meaning of words, but if anyone does it's all of us.
Language is a game. If the intended meaning is conveyed from speaker to audience, the game is won, and if not, it is lost.
One that grinds my gears is "average". To describe an effort as averge is neutral, but increasingly it's being used negatively
Average and its synonyms have been used as insults for centuries: mean, common, villain, etc. all are used by people who feel they are above-average to look down on the majority.
The line that amuses/bemuses/gobsmacks me is when you hear some politician saying "By the end of my term in office, every American (Australian in my case) will have an above average income." and no member of the press challenges the absurdity of that boast.
@@allenjenkins7947 Maybe they're talking about present average, not future average.
@@allenjenkins7947 cause we all hate unbased (that word might've been skunked), over-optimistic statements, do we? (no, that wasn't sarcastic)
That has already happened to the word "mean". Today, when saying that somebody is being "mean", you don't mean they're acting in a normal/average way, but worse than that.
I had burr holes drilled in my skull to wash away a clot (causing aphasia) in my brain. So I have "holes in my head" and been "brainwashed" - literally (as opposed to figuratively).
I hope the surgery went well. That's quite an amusing anecdote.
Almost uniquely literal? I hope you made a full recovery.
At least you weren't gaslighted. Gaslit? Congrats on getting your brain back! 😁
The word "brainwashing" is often meant to be the same as "indoctrination", but if you give it a bit of thought, it means just the opposite.
I've heard somewhere that 'brainwashing' is an attempt to translate from Chinese (?) and the original is more like 'heart washing' but us, westerners did them dirty
If someone knows the exact language please correct me, my memory is fuzy and I heard it in one of livestreams on other channel so no way to back up anything 😅
One common trend is using words that imply "not to be believed" in place of "really good." Fabulous, unbelievable, incredible, unreal, legendary.....
nice originally meant precise.
The journey of _toilette_ from a delicate and intimate bit of cloth to a porcelain plumbing fixture for excreta is to me the best example of this phenomenon.
I think there's a valuable difference in distinguishing between words misused because people don't know the actual meaning, things like nonplussed, bemused, enormity, or ambivalent; and between words being used as hyperbole like literally, wild, hero, or unique. I feel like people know what the actual meaning of those words are, they're just using them for emphasis. They're metaphors that spread through common usage, in part because they are so evocative.
Yes! I didn't think about it but I agree. "Iconic" is one word that's being diluted by people who understand its original meaning.
But doesn't the latter become the former over time? I assume "awesome" shifted to mean "very good" by people who knew the meaning "inspiring awe" and used it hyperbolically. These days many people don't know that etymology at all, and those who do know don't generally think about it when they hear the word in typical usage.
Using words as hyperbole is at least one step up the linguistic ladder compared to the verbally challenged who use 'f***ing' and 'bloody' as adjectives for every second word. That category, the verbally challenged, seems to be quite numerous here in Australia.
@@nkm6789 Sure, that happens eventually. But its still a different path to get there than words like bemused or enormity. People arent using them metaphorically for emphasis - they just dont know what they mean. I think thats a valuable and interesting difference.
Bullshit emphasis. I cringe (inwardly, if not literally) every time I hear “Amazing!” as a reaction to something as excrementally mundane as giving an order in a restaurant.
Etymology matters, and it helps. I am a retired German teacher. One day a few years ago, I was trying to help a student read the word “bezweifeln” (to doubt). I told this student that it had “zwei” (two) in the middle. Then I decided to look up the etymology of “doubt,” with its silent “b.” I was delighted to learn that “doubt” is built on the same root as “double.” Go, etymology!
In Dutch we say "twijfelen" and the 'twij' also comes from 'twee', which means 'two' in English. I had no idea! Thanks for pointing that out!
Ah, the rare kind of person who looks up words in the dictionary to ponder their meaning. Apparently "character" comes from the word "chisel", which is a sharp tool which you can use to carve something out of stone. This would make one think, doesn't it? As opposed to personality, character is thus something actively developed. That is why we say someone truly has character, as if it's a good thing. And indeed, it is
Language holds many wisdoms like those, as long as you check
@@captainzork6109 WTH is a "dictionary"? Just kidding... though I haven't seen a paper one in decades. I love etymology though, and I love the fact that my e-reader lets me call up the definition (including etymology) of any word by a simple tap on the screen.
My biggest gripe that's related is "blink." A light cannot blink because it does not have eyelids. Instead, it *flashes*. It drives me nuts every time.
So people shouldn't use metaphors when they speak?
@@Friend- - People do it so much that it's like they've forgotten that "flash" even exists. It's clearly word replacement.
@@SullenSecret Dude, chill.
“Toxic” is another word that has lost all objectivity.
It’s used to pour scorn on opposing viewpoints arbitrarily, much like “problematic”. I often feel like these meanings are leveraged on purpose and people should actively push back against this.
Rob, I was wildly and amazingly bemused by this video. You don't peruse subjects like an enormity of other UA-camrs, problematically leaving the viewer nonplussed, ambivalent, or disinterested. Like literally, you are a fantastic, unique genius at literary UA-cam. Absolutely decimated my very truth of words, leaving me fabulously and awesomely stunned. You are a hero, and a legend. (Satire, not satire)
Awesome!!!!!!!!!
One of my forbidden words for my writers when I was a technology magazine editor was "solution." It is now a marketing term to mean product or service -- it's one company's "solution" to a given need. I told my writers to only use it if the word "problem" was in close proximity or if they were talking about chemistry. Otherwise, the word would be edited out and replaced. It might not be a skunked word, but it certainly is annoying.
🥰🥰🥰
I tell my sons, "If it is not in a beaker, it is not a solution."
I swear that 60% of all companies (and 80% of tech companies!) founded since 2000 have "solutions" in their name.
@@pokerformuppets "close proximity"
@@tobycatVA The non-chemical usage is actually about as old, if not older, than the chemical one. "A particular instance or method of solving or settling; an explanation, answer, or decision" is the first meaning from ca. 1384; the "solution" you are talking about didn't come about until 1390.
This reminded me of the Workday ad with the rock stars being pissed by the way "rock star" is used in the workplace
I once heard someone on House Hunters on HGTV respond to the realtor pointing out that there was a coat closet with 'awesome.' He was not being ironic, not even in an Alanis Morissette way.
“Exponential” is my skunking pet peeve. It has a mathematical meaning, and it’s barely ever used that way by the general public.
Yes, especially when they mean logarithmic!
The most skunked math term is: less than 3.
I once heard someone say that a particular item (I can't remember what) was growing, not just geometrically, but exponentially. *sigh*
@@Fetherkoevery mathematical concept that cannot be done with fingers to advanced.
At least when it is misused it is usually done so via exaggeration. It is then possible they do MEAN exponential, even though the thing is not actually changing exponentially. I use exponential in non-maths contexts, but it only feels right when the thing is actually changing at least somewhat exponentially.
I literally found this video terrifically triggering, now I'm literally disillusioned. I'm resilient, and my recovery from deformation makes me a hero
😂
@@cheriastrahan8453 What a legend! ;)
I am mildly AMUSED.
that is really my most beloved statement.
I think the reason 'literally' has altered so much is that it's, well, literally such a great word for emphasis :)
Hopefully no one was triggered by my use of 'great' to not mean something large :)
I hate the word “literally” being skunked, as whenever I’m like in distress or something, starting to cry while chatting online, nobody will believe me if I say “I’m literally crying right now” or “you literally made me have a melt down”. They’ll think I’m joking, when I’m being completely serious
Of all the things in this video, pasting without formatting is the most useful thing I learned. You just saved me hours of my life, I never even thought to check if there would be a shortcut for this.
I’ve never heard anyone misuse bemused, but the abuse that random labours under is soul destroying.
Super random! Awesome!
I've seen/heard a lot of people (especially young ones) misuse bemused, as well as a lot of words. For some reason, they seem to think that a word that sounds like another word is the same thing as that other word. Um, cognates are usually inter-lingual, not intra-lingual. 😒 Yes, it's possible for a language to have multiple words that sound and mean the same, but it's not very common because it's pointless, and most of the ones that exist are from exactly THIS misunderstanding.
"Labours under" must be some weird British phrase, because it's an illogical assertion for me as an American.
A lot of very uneducated people find new and unusual ways to use vocabulary.
No one can have their own truth. Truth is the sum of facts that are, whether you want to believe in them or not. Anyone who says otherwise is a nutcase.
The problem with using unique to mean unusual is that there are already words that mean unusual, but by making unique mean unusual, it leaves you with no word that actually means unique. Ditto for literally.
Whenever it's in doubt, I either say "truly unique" (or in technical contexts, "globally unique"), or for the other meaning "relatively/fairly unique", or even "highly unique".
I have not found an easy solution for literally. I basically don't use it in the figurative sense, and in the non-figurative sense, I usually just explain myself "He was 8 feet tall. That's not an exaggeration."
Such a strict definition for the word unique would make it practically unusable though. There aren't many things that you can definitively say are one of a kind in such a large universe. None, I would say. And so if you open it up to be subjectively one of a kind, then it is open for many other uses as well. (IE- If a child makes a random sculpture in an art class, even though they made it, you can't be sure someone else, somewhere else didn't also make that exact same thing, therefore it would not actually be unique, even if you think it is)
@rdizzy1 Aside from the fact that I don't think you need absolute certainty to say something, I think you're imagining the wrong kind of use case.
For example, if I receive furniture from IKEA, the instruction manual might tell me that each part has a sticker with a unique label (e.g. A1, A2, B1, etc.). This unique still means "one of a kind" within the system. One of a kind doesn't always mean one of a kind in the whole universe.
The meaning that it's being confused by is more akin to "unusual". Something like "Kansas City is unique because it crosses a state border." While that's fairlly unusual, it's not actually the only city to do this, and no context suggesting we're only looking at a particular group of cities.
For what it's worth, there are actually still universal unique things we can say with some confidence. "Southeast Idaho is unique, because it is the only place that the U.S. Constitution makes it impossible to convict someone of a crime." I can be quite confident I haven't missed anywhere (assuming I take the time to research).
Similarly, "The number zero is unique, because it is the only real number which is neither positive nor negative."
@@rdizzy1 if someone else made a thing that was physically identical then both items would be unique, because they were made by different people (and probably at different times and in different locations) and certainly from different materials
In the medical field, this bleaching has happened with the word "syndrome." Previously, "syndrome" meant a collection of disparate symptoms/signs from differing body systems, yet each of those symptoms/signs somehow happened in a pattern together simultaneously. (Syn=together; Drome=run.) Now -- perhaps because the word "syndrome" sounds so authoritative -- medical diseases with only one symptom are being described as a "syndrome."
Excited.
When I was in a US evangelical Christian church everyone used the word excited so much I got to hate it.
Later on I found out a 19th Century meaning of the word excitement was much the same as what we today mean by the word stress: "She passed on from too much excitement".
I'm trying to figure out if I've never heard "bemused" to mean amused, or if I've just misunderstood the intended meaning sometimes.
The video brought to mind the Princess Bride quote: "I do not think that word means what you think it means." Inconceivable!
me too on that one.
@@meadow-maker Yes I agree. I've never heard bemused used to mean amused. As for "literally", I've always felt that people (in a lot of cases sports commentators) who used the word literally to add hyperbole to a figurative statement, are just demonstrating that they are stupid. Private Eye's Colemanballs column took the piss out of this quite a lot. One word you could have cited is "presently", which originally meant "now".
I’m also with you, both on bemused and the Princess Bride quote (one of my all-time favorite movies).
@@davespagnol8847 we “literally” have a lot of linguistic corruption to thank commentators and other similar journalists for. They seem, generally, to be ignorant in the extreme!
I could be wrong, but I think it's a British thing
One that stands out in my mind is "adorable". It used to be used to communicate that something or someone is worthy or deserving of adoration. These days, it is more commonly used to refer to something or someone that the speaker finds to be simply cute, charming, or endearing.
I don't think that's much of a changing of meaning. People have long had a tendency to especially honor or worship "cute" things.
@@jovetjI’ve read that cute characteristics - large eyes, small heads, soft fur/hair - have evolved to ensure survival, even if with help from another species. We, as humans and other animals, recognize this as vulnerability, as youth and helplessness. It’s interesting, in that sense, that we *would” adulate and respect the young and weak to ensure our own species’ survival.
Even worse is the tendancy to use 'Adorable' to describe ugly babies. i.e. It's capable of being adored, just not by me!
Would likely grow up to 'Have a face for Radio'
My dog is adorable (to me) :)
@@derekmills5394 "Cute" and "adorable" are still just opinions. Same for "pretty" "beautiful" "voluptuous" "ugly" "uncomely" "fat" "skinny" "hairy" "loud" "quiet" "tall" "short" "sexy" and so on....
I was a bit confused by the difference between uninterested and disinterested but for those wondering, a good synonym for disinterested is “unbiased” rather than “not interested”. I hope that helped someone.
Ironically, in the next Rob Words video I watched you described someone as "ridiculously" talented. Love the channel.
I wince everty time a TV programme tells me that someone's evidence is incredible, intending to mean that it is incredibly good. 'Incredible' does not mean 'excellent', it means 'unbelievable'. An incredible witness is one who can not be believed, a useless witness. Incredible evidence should be disregarded.
It's kinda the opposite of credible..it's INcredible
Opposite of credible meaning worthwhile and sound. Incredible would naturally mean false evidence or not worthy to be listened to.
Hear, hear! This one actually generated this sentence in one of my students' papers: "The evidence doesn't have to be incredible to prove [the point]." I tried to explain that "incredible" means "unbelievable," but that word now means the same thing--incredibly good. Skunked.
I like the Credible Hulk, he always cites his sources.
Ironic that unbelievable is now a synonym of incredible.
Iconic. The most overused. And incorrectly used word on the internet.
Change one letter and you've got the other one.
I JUST left a comment about the word UNIRONIC. Both of those words have to go.
Yes, I often cringe when I hear ‘iconic’ used to mean the best of something. It even gets used to describe unique (in the proper sense!) events. How can something unusual be an icon? Pretty soon ‘iconography’ will mean stuff I like to draw!!
i think "loose" being used instead of "lose" is far more prevalent
And don't forget diva. Nowadays, almost any pop music female singer is at risk of being so labelled.
I was just randomly scrolling through youtubes random recommendations when I saw this random video. It was very interesting and that random you chatted with had some great insights about all the random words you listed. I was however bemused and maybe even amused as to how one particular, random word didn't make the list. It’s used as an apparent placeholder for a seemingly random array of more appropriate words which bleach the semantics of many sentences with no clear trajectory towards a new specific definition.
*@[**16:01**]:* That would explain why the Spanish word for 'apology' is 'disculpa' instead of 'apología', where you would get the latter from the cognate pattern.
For me it's how 'anxious' has been abused to be the exact same as 'eager'.
I think some of the non-eager aspect of “anxious” has reemerged in recent decades as people have become more open with discussing their anxiety. When I was a kid in the 70s/80s I only took it to mean eager.
as an l2 speaker I had to think of expressions with these words to decypher a meaning of each so it kind of confirms your statement
@@RJGa That's 'ambivalence' where you experience two conflicting or contradictory ideas or emotions.
I've only heard the "eager" sense of the word "anxious" in movies from the 90s and earlier. I think it's come and gone at this point.
I would like to see a similar video addressing phrases. One example that I always find slightly jarring is the North American use of ‘I could care less’ in place of ‘I couldn’t care less’; clearly these have an opposing meaning.
I'm North American and I find it jarring, too.
I also find it jarring, but I've made my peace with it somewhat by imagining an unspoken "but I don't" at the end of the sentence :)
It's ignorance. Sheer ignorance. Mr. Rob has already done a great video on such mistakes such as you describe. Naturally, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head this moment...
I’m really enjoying your videos Rob. Informative, engaging, interesting, entertaining and just a ruddy good time had by yours truly. Thanks
I’m only one minute into the video and I’m already baffled. Had no idea « laissez-faire » had become a word, and english word with that, and that it was now pronounced [lassé fèr]. Full of surprises, those neighbours from across the Chanel… 🤭🤭🤭
As a psychologist, this issue with words about lack of interest makes a lot of sense because people often react to ambivalence (in it’s original psychological meaning) by telling themselves they don’t care because it’s easier to convince oneself you don’t care than to sit with the dissonance of opposing views.
hence loving animals and being against cruelty and also consuming animals.
I love my animals and eating them too... wait a minute maybe that's cake!
Truth! I know I'm regrettably guilty of doing this very thing.🤦🏻♀️ Instead of saying, "I don't care", I should say something like "I don't care to think about that right now, it's too much for me to process, please give me some time to consider your position." That's what I really mean, but it's just laziness on my part to shorten it to "I don't care."😐
I hope I'm not using "cognitive dissonance" incorrectly. I've never used ambivalence in its technical sense, but it would be more convenient than saying "it gives me a sense of cognitive dissonance." Loving someone who has done terrible things because they're family, for example. I just wasn't aware there was a word for it, and I don't think anyone I know is aware either.
What do you think about the spelling "extrovert"? In anything written by psychologists, it's spelled "extravert,"-and therefore I consider this the correct spelling-but everyone else spells it with an "o." Even spellcheck marks "extravert" as a misspelling as I type this.
One word that I find has changed from its etymology is "electrocute". It was coined in the 1890s as a portmanteau of electric and execute, literally meaning to deliberately cause death via electricity. However now it's used for any kind of electric shock, whether it's fatal or not. Of course, with the recent decline of the electric chair, it doesn't hold the same confusion as other words might.
Wow that's so interesting!
Electrocute was coined for a specific case, with the intent to slander. But there wasn't a common word for the general case. So, electrocute was used to mean injured by electricity straight away.
Execute is itself often used wrongly, as it should only refer to killing carried out by the state after due legal process.
@@simonbennett9687 The original meaning of "execute" was to put into effect or to carry out a course of action, from Old French executer, from Medieval Latin executare. The word then extended to performing judgment or sentence on someone, and finally to carrying out a death sentence. It's still used for all those purposes.
@@robertfitzjohn4755Exactly. It does not mean ‘murder’.
I take “my truth” vs “your truth” vs “their truth” to mean our part, our memory of the overall truth that we are responsible for knowing. For example, if there’s a car accident, witnesses see different things all the time. Sometimes those are mistakes or errors, mis-seeing things, but oftentimes, not having multiple perspectives of a situation can mean missing pieces of the truth and therefore a less complete and even unknowable truth. So multiple perspectives and storylines are the key components of figuring out the truth, especially in court cases and in science.
As Inigo Montoya once said; "You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". Touché!
@temujenbarca - Any reason to quote Inigo Montoya is good enough for me! 😊
"Unique" is important in the software/database world, for "unique IDs" and the like. I don't foresee that changing.
Also in mathematics, one may use the term uniqueness to mean that something only produces one unique result. For instance uniqueness in Cauchy limits. I guess words also become more precise in their meaning, when you have to make a rigorous definition for something.
Perhaps once the word has been bleached or skunked from common usage, the technical fields will retain what's left of it for themselves. I bet this has happened already for other words...
"Exponentially" is also very important in many fields (like economics, but honestly almost anywhere where numbers matter), but it's misused more often than not.
I think "unique" is an exception in more ways than that, because I don't think it's "misused" in a way that creates any actual confusion. So far as I can tell, people just like to pass on the learned correction that it shouldn't be used with comparatives without necessarily understanding why. There are contexts where you're likely to need to identify (as in a namespace) that something is "unique" in that it possesses at least one distinguishing feature (character), the narrowest sense of the word. But the contexts where someone says that something is "more unique" or "less unique" (e.g. that this jacket, rap album, or discovered potsherd has several or few distinguishing features not seen in others like it) are contexts where it's a given that these things are already unique in the narrowest sense of the word and no one would be trying to specify that. To create the ambiguity required for skunking, I think it'd be unrelated to comparatives, but you'd need to have "unique" being commonly used to exaggerate "rare". I *have* heard that in contexts like "I'm in a unique situation", but I don't think that's common enough to threaten the other senses.
(And also, to match the pedants in their hairsplitting about comparatives, most cases of "very unique" quite probably actually intend to emphasize that the unique feature of a thing is particularly notable, I.e. to say that the thing is "notably unique", and the word being misused isn't even the "unique" in the first place.)
Unique in databases is exactly the "unique within certain scope" meaning of the word.
I have a very niche one. I work in microbiology and we get a lot of clients that ask for "speciation" work when they need species identification work done
That's pretty funny. That said, it would be a lot more impressive if you could rapidly evolve specimens into new species for your clients!
I think this one prolly happens cuz speciation is _painfully_ similar to a portmanteau of the words, so it's easy to misinterpret -w-'
@@foul-fortune-feline aha yeah, I can understand *why* they're doing it, but it's still painful to see. I read an email this morning from a member of staff within the company I work for and they used speciation, so I gave them a right ear full 😂 in a nice way of course
@@alextomlinson2830 Lmao ye, I was more just speculating on why it happens >w
Yes, when I first started working in IT in the NHS and came across the word "specialty" I assumed it was a typo for "speciality".
Brilliant (yes, shiny) presentation and topic! Yea many a words 'r very technical, in skilled occupations where adhesion, cohesion, absorption, adsorption, solution, suspension, protend, distend, subtend, extend, overextend, ... are all precise and meaningfully different.
Peter Sokolowski, a French speaking Canadian (mom French, dad Polish) had a great podcast with other editors of Merriam-Webster called “Word Matters”. It was amazing for people who love languages. Regrettably, they stopped in August 2022. I hope they will start again
So glad you mentioned "awesome". The other day I was looking for a word to mean "terrifyingly beautiful" (in this case as it would relate to the scale, or size, of something), and came to the startiling conclusion that awesome *would* have fit probably the best... but it's new usage caused me to be unable to use it. Interesting video!
Mayhap “awe-inspiring” would do the trick?
I totally agree. The word awesome has been ruined!
And along the same lines, "awful", having degraded to simply meaning "bad", rather than "worthy of fear, respect, or reverence."
@@MattakiUtsuro How about "Aw Yeah!"
The difference between it's and its. Grammar freak here 😛
There's also the issue of words and phrases related to mental disabilities being used in the wrong ways, such as someone saying they had an "intrusive thought" to suddenly dye their hair--that would be an "impulsive thought". Along with that, there's also the more negatively impactful wrong uses of terms, such as saying "I'm so OCD" when it would be a lot more accurate and respectful to just say you're a perfectionist and/or like things to be clean.
Just like _jealous_ often used for _envious._ 😥
At the same time, I would say that just because someone took two common English words like "intrusive" and "thought" and made a specific technical term out of it, that does not mean that everyone else is banned from ever using those words in another way ever again. So, you're example would be a non-sensical use of "intrusive thought". Has anyone ever used it that way? But, if I say that a thought was intruding in an unwelcome way into my mind, then I don't think it is wrong to call it an intrusive thought just because I have not paid a psycho-whateverist to clinically diagnose me with something.
@@NickRoman This sounds more like your own personal qualms with the field of psychology clouding your opinion on word usage.
@@NickRoman Please use the apostrophe correctly, it's confusing when you used it incorrectly, it takes away its meaning.
@@NickRoman what you're describing would still be an intrusive thought. intrusive thoughts don't need a diagnosis. The issue the original comment is talking about is people using the term intrusive thought to describe thoughts that are just sudden or impulsive, NOT thoughts that are intruding in an unwelcome or distressing way, which is what the term actually means
I'm the only person I know who uses the word ambivalent, and I've been using it's correct definition this whole time. I'm glad I could help "un-skunk" the word in my small portion of the world. It's one of my favorite words actually.
I used the word dichotomy once, and the bloke I used it to, said he had never heard anyone use it in casual conversation before.
My family has a lot of misused/modified words for stuff that comes from my dad. I’ve gotten so used to some of them that I have to remind myself that other people don’t know what they mean.
One of our most used ones is muggins, that we use for cuddles. No idea where it comes from.
Then there’s other stuff that is just mispronounced like “all my by self” and “finguring something out” which I’ve learned the hard way to steer clear of for obvious reasons.
Agree: The absolute worst is the misuse of "literally", which now has left us with literally no word for literally.
Neh thats just slang, the same way "cool" is not actually a temperature reference. I think that one has stopped being used anyway, as its going back out of fashion
@@patrickscannell6370 I get your point, but ‘cool’ isn’t a good example. ‘Cool’ has two common and understood meanings, it’s just reliant on context to determine which. If someone said, “is quite cool out today”, you’ll know that it’s a reference to temperature. Another context could be, “You must be cold, your hands are cool to the touch.” However if they say, “I met your friend at the party, he was pretty cool!’, you’d know it was used to describe a person’s attitude/personality.
It is no longer a necessary word, because NOT using the word literally, now means that it is literal. You just say what happened if you mean it literally.
We'll have to make another word for literally. Literally in the Old Sense.... Litos? Yeah, that's not in use! Now just get Taylor Swift to use it a few times, and we'll be good!
As one becomes older, the tendency to become irritated when hearing or reading a word being used "incorrectly" increases. Then, after some reflection, one remembers saying things such as, "that was wickedly good", as a schoolboy, and suddenly one's own verbal sloppiness lessens one's ire at that of one's grandsons. I still hate it when they say titular when they mean eponymous, though. 🤦♂️
congrats on having the only grandkids in the world who say titular enough for it to be an analysable trend
eponymous does mean the same thing as titular most of the time though??
I know what you mean. I spent the morning writing a rather sharp-tongued letter to our local newspaper, suggesting that they strongly encourage their reporters to write in the inverted pyramid style. And, I said, who knows? They might then go on to spelling, grammar, homonyms, the list is endless! My husband said I was being curmudgeonly. :)
The meaning I had assigned to "bemused" was amused at something weird or quaint.
The example most present in my head was of watching a younger sibling try and fail to do something basic, like pouring juice into a glass.
I watch this channel because i love etymology. Observing phonetic and semantic drift is fascinating to me. And this is semantic drift that i get to watch right in front of my eyes! It's amazing.
The biggest problem is not when a word has a new meaning which is different from the old meaning, but the transition phase when it can either meaning leaves it with no agreed meaning. Words only communicate something when they have an agreed meaning.
Nailed it.
Look at the children
all at their play
oh how to see them
so happy and gay.!
I think the reason people get so upset about the bleaching or skunking of “literally”, is that through that process, it’s slowly coming to mean the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to (and yes, I’m using “supposed” literally here). By using it as a modifier in a sentence like “I literally died”, it’s coming to stand in place for “figuratively”.
I would theorise that the reason this is happening is that English speakers just love using modifiers for emphasis so much, we burn through them very quickly as time passes and the vernacular evolves. We all want to sound different from our parents and grandparents. I’d argue that even words as ubiquitous as “totally” or “completely” have had their meaning diluted through their use as modifiers, it just happened a few generations ago, so nobody even thinks about it.
Fascinating and informative video, as always.
its not just in English, also in German and other languages. My impression is that 'negative' meanings tend to be more used (as modifier and/or to intensify/superlative something) than 'positive' ones. Like 'terrific beautiful' is more likely than 'beautiful terror(ized)'.
Yeah, I'm not the person who usually gets upset about drift of meanings, but "literally" is my strongly felt exception, because there's not a good word to replace it.
There needs to be a word that isn't as strong as f%#ing, (which I still love, btw, but a little goes a long way) but still gets the job done. Same goes for a smile or laugh emoji.
@@cremsen1 maybe we should all start using “figuratively” to mean “literally”…
@@auntiegravity7713 I’m a fan of “effin’”
The first one of these words I ever recognized was "ignorant." I was talking to my lab partner and she used it about someone and I was confused enough I had to go home and look it up. And then I was still really confused because the definition was exactly what I'd known it to be. So I had to ask her the next time she used it, just to find out it meant "rude." I proceeded to get quite ignorant about her definition of "ignorant" when I said I was ignorant of that definition.
It makes sense that 'decimate' would have its meaning transformed over time. Even if you know that 'deci' comes from 10, you might be led to believe (by virtue of its use) that something that is 'decimated' has been reduced TO 10% of its original size rather than BY 10%.
Ambivelant is one that makes me sad. Because I've always used it in the older sense. I find that it's really useful to have a word that referrs to having 2 strong and opposed feelings.
People prefer cognitive dissonance now, much trendier, and not actually the same meaning either.
I started this video upset at people who misuse words. Now I am upset with myself.
The thing with "unique" is that, yes, if there's a combination of attributes that make it non-matching, it's unique. But if a thing has EVERY attribute different, it's incredibly unique.
Drives me insane when people use "itch" instead of "scratch".
Example: "I'm itching my arm because I was bitten by a mosquito."
NO!!! You're SCRATCHING an ITCH.
I’ve never actually heard “itch” used that way, however . . . If I did, it would probably bother me just as much as it does you. 😅
itching is the sensation of requiring scratching to relieve said sensation - lol
The way I think of it when people say that is that they're scratching their itch, thereby making it itchier, and are thus itching their itch lol
@@user-Aaron- You just made my eyeball twitchy... So what's it like being the literal devil? Lol
@@hugeuglygorillaz9599 😆
Your cat is getting its own air fryer?! Will it have special controls for its little paws?
I don't know why they call it an air fryer when it's a personal fan oven.
Yes, there's a paws button...
@@SP-ki5gn Literally?
🤣
@@SP-ki5gn
That would be purrfect if it had.
You remind me Ross from Friends. Love your show. “There’s nothing with speaking correctly.” “Indeed there isn’t”
My sons, who share my love of language and appreciation for effective communication and discussion, have a policy of clarifying terms at the outset of any discussion, or when it appears there is disagreement.
Sometimes, just explaining what each of us means, by “safe” or some other, apparently obvious word, can make the difference between understanding or being at each other‘s throats.
The skunked word I’ve noticed is “insane” used as a compliment or to signify amazement or awe.
"Insane" and "epic" are the two I always consider to have been ruined by social media. They're just used as fancy enhancers of whatever is being talked about.
Or sick, being great
You're going to really hate what us Kiwis have done to the word "mean", then @@kathleenking47
That's not really skunked, just gained a new meaning. You can still use it in the original sense without being misunderstood.
This one drives me nuts. There are sooo many videos titled "The Insane Biology of ...", "The Insane Engineering of ...", etc. It bugs me so much, I refuse to watch any of them. :-/
The word "skunking" is a really nice bit of terminology to add to the vocabulary. This comes very close to something I've long wanted a word or brief phrase to refer to, which is how there can be a crowding out effect in public discourse where an idea becomes difficult to refer to or discuss because there exists a somewhat similar but far more prominent idea in the public discourse that's completely unhinged and associated with crazy people. A good non-controversial example might be how pilots are afraid to report something as ostensibly mundane and neutral as "I saw something in the sky that I couldn't identify" because they know they will instead be taken to be saying "I witnessed proof of the Anunnaki and every night since I've been astral projecting into their mothership where I now have a harem of beautiful alien creatures."
Yes! (Incidentally, when people bring up UFOs and all whether I believe in them, I like to make a joke about how there are lots of things I can't identify and some of them do fly.)
The sound effect in this video is better than the word. Can we just use that as the word?
I don't know if there's a neutral term for when this happens organically but this effect is definitely deliberately evoked to poison the well on certain subjects. Such as labelling an inconvenient topic as a "conspiracy theory" so it's associated with crackpot stuff like the Anunnaki in order to discourage it's discussion
I saw a UFO. It was a plane but I couldn't identify what kind of plane
There's already a word I made up for this: gloffiscate. You nailed the definition.
I always thought 'decimate' meant "reduce to one tenth of the original size/quantity". (In other words, to remove 90%, leaving only 10% remaining.)
Thanks Rob, awesome video. You're literally a legend!
I'm a Persian speaker and have seen this process in our language. As an example, some years ago I realized people use the word that means "path" to mean "destination" in the context of telling their destination to a cab driver.
Rob, I share your sense of being irritated at these reckless usages of words. There was a time when I thought languages evolve because of people's creativity and coinage of new words etc., but I've come to realize that a major (if not the biggest) driving force is people's not knowing or not caring about the correct meaning or pronunciation of words.
I know nothing of the Persian language, but it sounds like what you're describing may be a distinction that used to exist in English but has disappeared. It used to be considered incorrect to say "come here" because "here" refers specifically to a location (where the speaker is). Saying "come here" would be like saying "come New York" -- wrong. The proper thing to say was "come hither". Now "hither" only exists in the fossilized expression "hither and thither", and everyone says "come here".
To add to your point about languages changing because people don’t care enough to preserve the correct spellings and meanings: what a lot of the “languages have always changed throughout history so you should just accept it” people don’t realise that one of the main reasons languages changed so much in the past is because such a large portion of the population was illiterate, which compounded the issue of people not even being aware that they were altering their language.
To suggest that we are the no better than these illiterate people from the past is a tad patronising and is one of the reasons we should now refrain from altering words as they exist in the present day.
I like resurrecting words like hither. Thanks for the reminder. Thither might be a bit more of a challenge because I've always heard people say hither and tither. My spellcheck seems to confirm both it at this very moment. (But I've just googled it, and now I see that a tither is a ten-percenter. Different pronunciation.)@@forrcaho
Except that now there's a thing called the internet which is open to the masses. All 8 billion of us. Good luck slowing the tsunami. Maybe AI can save us.@@quartzking3997
@@forrcaho In Wales people say "Come by here" or "Go by there" which may sound odd to an English ear but makes sense literally in the literal sense, y'know like.
I always thought "decimate" suffered from the same ambiguity that the phrase "bi-weekly" does - it could mean to reduce by a tenth, or to reduce TO a tenth.
Either of those would be OK as they capture the idea of a change in number, related to the number 10. A big difference in magnitude of course, but the same concept. It's when decimate is used simply as a fancier version of devastate that it becomes annoying and illogical.
@@mattermat1925 well we don't use quintessential in any way associated with the number 5 anymore, or trivial with 3, so why can't we use the word decimate separately from 10?
@@mattermat1925 and unisex and "of one sex" are antonyms rather than synonyms
@@mattermat1925 Indeed. The use of decimate or decimation to indicate loss that is greater or more profound than mere devastation often backfires. It is so obviously inaccurate that it negates serious argument.
I would suggest that for a word meaning "to reduce TO a tenth", we coin a slightly different word, "decirate"? Perhaps "decivate"?
Bi-weekly *should* mean "every two weeks"; "semi-weekly" should be used for "twice a week".
A friend of mine, who teaches college kids, literally feels decimated when he sees "comprise" (or more accurately, the phrase "...is comprised of...") being used the way it often is. That is another word that I feel is being skunked. It's not always the young undergrads who use it this way, lots of people do.
When someone says "I could care less", I literally respond with "I couldn't".
One word that is getting ruined at the moment is "mediocre" when they mean bad. Mediocre should mean good enough, the most common, ordinary, not "something not worth it for me".
Thing is, it often IS the case that "the most common" and "ordinary" really do refer to something bad that you don't want. The purpose of a lot of selection is precisely to avoid choosing all but the highest quality of something. A university doesn't want to accept the most common or ordinary applicants, they want the best. A sports team doesn't want to choose the average jill and joe for their team, they want the best.
I’ve always used mediocre to mean “just okay.”
I wish more people would actually use words like mediocre instead of coming up with dumb slang terms like "mid."
blame euphemism for that. another case is "not the best" being used to mean "bad".
In popular culture, the most offensive thing possible is to not stand out. More things are celebrated for being bad or even terrible. For example, how does the movie The Room have an audience? By any objective measure it's an awful movie. Terrible acting, dialogue, writing, plot. The best thing you can say about it, is that it looks like a real movie bc the creator spent most of the budget on a professional level camera. And somehow that elevates it to a cultural touchstone. We celebrate the different, good, and especially bad. Being "normal", "unremarkable", and "mediocre" is the greatest of possible sins today.
The one that gets me the most is "mortified." More often than not, people use it to mean something more akin to "horrified," instead of embarrassed or humiliated. I frequently see things like "I was absolutely mortified when I saw the grisly accident scene" or "the mother must have been mortified when she realized her son was missing." Really? What is embarrassing about either of those things? I literally (hee hee) don't use that word anymore because of this.
Well, the kitty on your picture looks pretty mortified. 😄
@@gabor6259 Ha ha! She probably is mortified that I am sharing her awkward family photos in public. However, she did warf up a hairball this morning, which made me pretty horrified!!! 😆
Well, it's a little more nuanced than that. "Mortification" is also used to refer to ascetic self-denial and the deadening of bodily tissues, and comes from a fairly predictable root given the prefix; to be mortified is, figuratively speaking, to die inside, or at least feel like it. There is a distinct element of horror and physicality to mortification which isn't implied in mere embarrassment or even shame.
Ah, it's somewhat a relief that this isn't only happening in my social circles! One of my close friends uses this a lot but it makes me internally cringe every time.
@@ConvincingPeople Sure, but I feel pretty sure that that most people don't know that. I think that "mortified" has lost that nuance in common parlance over the years, and many people now seem to think that the main emotion implied is terror or fear, rather than embarrassment or humiliation. I think you're right that the "mort" prefix is what may have started the confusion!
I love it. I love everything about this video. I love the precision of communication. I love the ambiguity. I love the pedantry. I love the history and evolution.
But! I really love the ambiguity above everything else. Precision in communication is often the goal, but I like to think of words not only as tools but also as toys. As play things, the ambiguity has so many great uses as art. And in that context, I revel in the words being used and misused, and toyed with to convey multiple meanings. Even occasionally to use them as annoyances. Enjoy the play things you have and make the most of them, and make sure to play well with others.
I've always found the original meaning of "disinterested" extremely useful, as in "they consulted a disinterested party," and resent its skunkification. But the one I dislike most is "iconic," which once referred to something so well-known that it transcended mere fame and became an abstract symbol (as if it were a holy icon). Now some dreary tune that made it to 49th place on the charts thirty years ago is "iconic." On the other hand, I was both bemused and amused when in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom said "We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely."