Does that bemuse you?
Have you ever been to a dinner party or chatted with someone and they tried to toss in word slightly more upscale than their usual linguistic range? Most of the time, you kind of get what they mean, so out of politeness, you nod and move on — that's what context is for after all.
But it seems now that people have been getting away with specific horrible misuses of words more commonly now, and it just has to stop.
First off — bemused.
It does not mean amused, which is the misuse I've seen too many times to count. People, it is more akin to confused.
from answers.com :
be·muse (bĭ-myūz')
tr.v., -mused, -mus·ing, -mus·es.
1. To cause to be bewildered; confuse. See synonyms at daze.
2. To cause to be engrossed in thought.
I don't see anything amusing in there at all.
Secondly — nonplussed.
I does not mean unimpressed, or was kind of 'whatever' about it. Shockingly, it means something closer to confused. Again.
from answers.com:
non·plus (nŏn-plŭs')
tr.v., -plussed also -plused, -plus·sing -plus·ing, -plus·ses -plus·es.
To put at a loss as to what to think, say, or do; bewilder.
n.
A state of perplexity, confusion, or bewilderment.
So, if you ever find yourself bewildered or confused about the meanings of these two words, just roll with it. That is, after all, their meaning.
Lest you think I'm on a language high horse, at least I'm not arguing about how to pronounce "pwn".
posted by lemurs @ 10:29 AM
3 Comments:
Haha, that totally rules. Posts like this make me miss Seattle and my friends. This is not the kind of conversation I generally have with Richmond people. When dealing with my buds here, I am more than occasionally "nonplussed," so to speak. BTW, if you have never seen it, you oughtta find that episode of South Park that was the World of Warcraft homage/mockery where Cartman actually pronounces "pwn." Good stuff.
it's good I couldn't care less about 1337.
that is some fucked up crazy stuff.
my nephew says "noob" all the time to me.
I myself am guilty of using faecious(sp?) entirely too much.
Good thing I know how to spell it and all as well
I live in Australia (my third home country) and language does very strange things here. At some point the meaning of words has been so thoroughly hijacked that it is pointless to resist. The one that annoys me the most is the misuse of "nexus". It is frequently used as a simple synonym for "link", when it means nothing of the kind. It's awful to see language lose these very fine discriminations.
Slang language undergoes even greater changes. For example, the great British term "bunfight" used to mean something like a particularly robust English tea, or sometimes a meal. In that sense, it's rather clever. Now it's been changed to mean some kind of actual disputation. Again it's the triumph of something utterly literal over the metaphorical and abstract.
The difficulty isn't that the original notions described by these words go away; it's that the meaning migrates to far vaguer references. A precision a century old or more is lost. Which is in some ways perhaps the point. It is as though the "now" has become so big in our minds, that the influence of the past needs to be hidden.
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