History CommonlyMisusedWords / VeryPedantic

* Ever since Creator/DashiellHammett used '''gunsel''' to subvert the MediaNotes/HaysCode, countless crime writers have used it to mean "gunman". Good luck with finding a [[{{Pun}} straight]] use of the original meaning -- [[{{Uke}} a submissive male homosexual]] -- these days. And, for that matter, "hired gun" originally referred to any sort of criminal, not just an assassin, and the "gun" part came from the [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Yiddish]] ''ganef'' ("thief"). Furthermore, "gun moll", a combination of the previous word and ''Molly'', [[IrishmanAndAJew the stereotypical name for an Irish woman]], originally meant not "lady with a gun", but "lady who hung out with thieves."

* Ever since Creator/DashiellHammett used '''gunsel''' to subvert the MediaNotes/HaysCode, countless crime writers have used it to mean "gunman". Good luck with finding a [[IncrediblyLamePun straight]] use of the original meaning -- [[{{Uke}} a submissive male homosexual]] -- these days. And, for that matter, "hired gun" originally referred to any sort of criminal, not just an assassin, and the "gun" part came from the [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Yiddish]] ''ganef'' ("thief"). Furthermore, "gun moll", a combination of the previous word and ''Molly'', [[IrishmanAndAJew the stereotypical name for an Irish woman]], originally meant not "lady with a gun", but "lady who hung out with thieves."

* An '''acronym''' is a type of initialism which forms a word, such as "laser" ('''l'''ight '''a'''mplification by '''s'''timulated '''e'''mission of '''r'''adiation), or "amphetamine" ('''a'''lpha-'''m'''ethyl-'''ph'''en'''et'''hyl'''amine''').[[note]]An initialism does not need to be composed ''entirely'' of initials; it can contain word fragments or whole words. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initialism The Other Wiki]] for more information.[[/note]] This distinction is commonly ignored; Creator/TheBBC and ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Guardian]]'' are just two mainstream media outlets who are happy to use "acronym" as though it were synonymous with "initialism".

** The proper term for a [[RobotGirl female man-like robot]] is gynoid -- "woman-like". In this sense, the words are still used in context of obesity.

* '''Black and white''' images contain shades of grey. The technical term in the image-processing business is '''greyscale''', with "black and white" referring to images that have been reduced simply to those two colours.

* '''[[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies Conservative]]''' should not be used to describe someone who is opposed to change of any sort, let alone somebody who wants to turn the clock back to an earlier era. That is a '''reactionary''', and such people are actually quite rare nowadays[[note]]outside the Internet, [[InternetJerk of course]][[/note]]. A conservative merely argues that things should not be changed if it is not absolutely necessary to do so, or that change should come as gradually as possible. Many conservatives in the past have been willing to accept economic reform (and, to a lesser extent, social reform) as long as the cultural norms of civilization itself were left untouched.
** "Conservative" and "liberal" have come to mean very different things than when the terms were more or less established in the French revolution; ''les conservateurs'' were those opposed to the social ideals of the revolution and wanted to "conserve" the monarchy -- and, incidentally, sat on the right wing of the French parliamentary chamber -- while ''les libéraux'' were those intent on "liberating" the people from monarchic rule. In the past few decades, conservatives have been more about binding personal liberties ("conserving" the social order) while disestablishing the state ("liberating" people -- in theory, anyway -- from rulership), while the liberal side of the equation seems to maintain its intent to open up social freedoms while maintaining (or even ''increasing'') the role of the state. This is the problem with defining a multi-dimensional question on a simple left/right axis. Political theorist David Nolan (creator of the Nolan chart, which corrects for the inconsistencies of the left/right axis) has suggested that ''populist'' be substituted for what most Americans refer to as ''liberal'' - fitting, since American liberalism is usually thought to have split into its "classical" and "modern" wings in the 1890s, when the Democratic party (cautiously) co-opted the People's (or "Populist") party in order to blunt the accusation from socialists and others that they were no different from the Republican party.

** The word media also is starting to show signs of abuse (e.g., "removable media" for a single CD-ROM). If you really want shocking, however, look no further than French, where "media" (as in newspapers) is now most commmonly used as the singular and "medias" as its plural--and that's in a so-called Latin language.

* '''Deadly sins''': Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Wrath are, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the "seven cardinal vices". The term "Deadly sin" or "mortal sin" refers to any sin that is serious enough to separate a Christian from the grace of God, unless the sinner undergoes the sacrament of reconciliation (confession, penance, and absolution). According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Cardinal Vices are contrasted with the Cardinal Virtues, and refers to character traits that are the root of all sin. For instance, one does not murder simply for murder's sake, but because Wrath was awakened when the person was wronged, or because Greed was awakened when the person saw an opportunity to get money, etc.

* '''Destiny''' was generally defined as an ''inevitable, unalterable'' future event. Language has shifted enough such that it is now more generally known, even in many dictionaries, as a generalized word for forthcoming events, making phrases such as "changing one's destiny" retroactively correct.

* '''Ego'''[[note]]simply means "I" in Latin[[/note]], when used alongside terms like '''id''', is often assumed to be its opposite. In fact, according to UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, the counterpart to "id" (basically, all your instincts and raw desires) is the '''superego''' (the critical, moral part of the mind). The "ego" acts as the mediator between the two, bringing RealLife into the mix. Crossword puzzles appear to be the most likely culprits here.

* '''Holiday''' has come to mean "any recognized occasion of celebration with special significance", or ([[SeparatedByACommonLanguage if you're British]]) "any period of personal leisure". Originally, though, it specifically referred to days of celebration with ''religious'' significance, which were officially recognized as such by the Church. Hence the word's etymology: it's a corruption of "holy day", which itself came from the Old English ''"hāligdæg"''. Thus, while holidays like Christmas and Easter would fit the old definition, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July would not. And even many contemporary religious holidays can stretch the old definition when their secular significance ends up eclipsing their religious signicance: very few people seriously celebrate Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Saint Patrick's Day as the eve of All Saint's Day, the feast day of Saint Valentine, and the feast day of Saint Patrick, respectively. [[note]] Even Christmas and Easter aren't ''entirely'' religious in nature: many nonbelievers celebrate both holidays as secular festivals marking the beginning and end of Winter.[[/note]]

* A '''jigsaw''' is a motorised saw which can cut wood into non-standard shapes. A puzzle made using a jigsaw is called a "jigsaw ''puzzle''" (and even then, the "jigsaw" part is largely an ArtifactTitle nowadays).

* The original '''labyrinth''' (λαβύρινθος[[labelnote:romanization]]labúrinthos[[/labelnote]]) of Myth/GreekMythology was a very complex maze; hence the use of a thread to find the way out. But the term shifted to describe what began as an illustration of the myth: a figure consisting of a twisty but unbranched path, such as appears on the floor of many old churches.

* Ever since Creator/DashiellHammett used '''gunsel''' to subvert the Usefulnotes/{{Hays Code}}, countless crime writers have used it to mean "gunman". Good luck with finding a [[IncrediblyLamePun straight]] use of the original meaning -- [[{{Uke}} a submissive male homosexual]] -- these days. And, for that matter, "hired gun" originally referred to any sort of criminal, not just an assassin, and the "gun" part came from the [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Yiddish]] ''ganef'' ("thief"). Furthermore, "gun moll", a combination of the previous word and ''Molly'', [[IrishmanAndAJew the stereotypical name for an Irish woman]], originally meant not "lady with a gun", but "lady who hung out with thieves."

* '''PC''', used to refer to computers running Microsoft Windows, is an interesting case. PC is an initialism for "Personal Computer." In the literal sense of the term, this refers to any computer for use by a single person (as opposed to the room-sized computers which you accessed via a terminal), including such things as the Commodore 64 and yes, Apple computers. However, PC also refers to a specific computer architecture, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer IBM Personal Computer]] and its clones, for which Microsoft built its DOS and Windows operating systems, and became so dominant that "PC" became synonymous with "Windows computer", despite the fact that [[UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} Linux and BSD]] are relatively popular on the platform. Notably, while current Apple computers are [=PCs=] in the latter sense, before 2006 they did actually have their own distinct architecture ([=PowerPC=]), and thus weren't [=PCs=].

* '''Spinster''' means "unmarried woman" as the female version of "bachelor" (its etymology comes from women who spun cloth for a living, one of the few ways women in older times could support themselves without a man). Many anglophone countries in Africa and the Caribbean issue marriage certificates that list the "spinster" and "bachelor" instead of bride and groom (or spouse 1 and spouse 2, etc.). But in other countries, including the United States, the word as picked up decidedly negative connotations in ways [[DoubleStandard "bachelor" has not]].

* '''Big Ben''' is the name of the bell at the top of the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London. The tower itself was simply known as the ''Clock Tower'' until 2012[[note]]some old sources call it "St. Stephen's Tower", but this was only a nickname, never an official one[[/note]], when it was renamed the ''Elizabeth Tower'' for UsefulNotes/ElizabethII's Diamond Jubilee, not Big Ben.

* The word '''perverted''' can refer to anything from child molestation to strange but harmless sexual fantasies, depending on whom you ask. However the definition of a pervert is someone who corrupts or misuses a person or thing; to say a person is perverted is closer to declaring them morally reprehensible than to saying they have a sexual disorder. The word originally referred to people opposing religious doctrine, and probably found its current (perverted?) usage in some churches' campaign against homosexuality.

** Intertwined with the above controversy is the common blurring of the line between ''society'' and ''culture''. The "social" structure is just that - a structure, an artificial construct created by humans to preserve law and order according to an arbitrary standard; whereas "culture" is more organic, more universal (at least in theory), and primarily concerned with anything humans do that is not necessary for survival (religion, art, entertainment). One can be both culturally liberal in believing that artists have the right to create pornography and socially conservative in insisting that that pornography never be distributed to - let alone involve - children. Similarly, one can be culturally conservative by remaining a good Christian or Jew or Buddhist, but socially liberal if those religious beliefs lead one to oppose the status quo in the name of a higher standard of justice (anti-abortion protesters, for instance).

* '''Despot''' (Greek δεσπότης[[labelnote:romanization]]despótēs[[/labelnote]], meaning "master"; feminine: δέσποινα[[labelnote:romanization]]déspoina[[/labelnote]]) was a court title of the Byzantine empire, roughly meaning "lord." A despot was given control of a smaller region of the empire, called a despotate. It was only when American revolutionaries said that the British were ruling them as they would an imperial outpost that "despotism" and "despot" came to be pejorative. Despotism was also associated with ''absolute authority'' before it became associated with ''unjust authority''.

* '''Dictator''' was originally someone who wielded absolute power in AncientRome at the behest of the Senate in times of emergency, and his time in office was restricted to six months, until the next election; one may not have ''liked'' the particular dictator in question, but the office itself wasn't a bad thing compared to the emergency under which it arose (and in the Republic, the Romans did ''not'' like kings). Only when Caesar became dictator ''for life'' did some republicans begin to resent it, and even up to millennia later, in the 19th and early 20th centuries (when democratic ideals were still taking root in much of the Western world), it wasn't necessarily a bad title compared to, say, hereditary absolute monarchy. Essentially, the modern usage of the term focuses on the "taking power and ruling absolutely" part of the definition, ignoring the part about said rule being ''limited and temporary''.

* '''Innuendo''' is anything that hints at something without saying it out loud, not just restricted to sex. It is perfectly possible to talk about a "racist innuendo", for example.

* '''-mancy''' is often used as a general-purpose suffix to mean magic of some specific kind. For one thing, it's often incorrectly used as "-omancy", inserting an extraneous O into words that don't have one (like "blahomancy" rather than "blahmancy"). This probably stems from one of its most common uses being in "necromancy", where some might not quite realize exactly where the suffix begins. In addition, [[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-mancy "-mancy" specifically refers to divination]], not magic in general. A fantasy sorcerer who raises the dead is not technically performing necromancy. However, this technical misuse of the term has become nigh-omnipresent in contemporary vernacular.

* '''SerialKiller''' and '''mass murderer''' are often incorrectly used as synonyms. While they both have to murder at least three people, a mass murderer kills all their victims in one go (think ''UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}}'', or Elliot Rodger's massacre), whereas a serial killer has a "cooling down" period, and usually only murders one person at a time (think Ted Bundy or Jeffery Dahmer.)

* '''Tyrant''' in the original, ancient Greek meaning, was a single person who ruled over a city through usurpation (they took sovereignty by force, without right or permission). It was a value-neutral term, not a pejorative for an evil or oppressive ruler. Many ancient Greek tyrants were actually very well-liked (for instance Peisistratos of Athens). That said, the negative connotation of "tyrant" also comes from Ancient Greece: specifically Athens, where the term first showed up, when there was an "evil tyrant". It's been negative ever since. Strictly speaking, the meaning was "a ruler whose rule doesn't come from the state's laws" (''i.e.'' synonymous with "usurper"). As such, the name was often used to describe rulers appointed by foreign powers (like in the states conquered by the Persian Empire).

* '''Viking''' is not a demonym[[note]]a word that denotes an ethnic group[[/note]] but a name of profession. People most commonly described as such were in fact Norse or Norsemen (Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians). The word ''víking'' (it's the feminine form, by the way) means "journey" or "raid", so a ''víkingr'' (the masculine form) was a person who was taking part in mercantile voyages or raids. Prior to the ninth century it usually meant "seaman" or "merchant", but later it gravitated towards the rough part of the trade, meaning "pirate" or "raider". In other words, Norse craftsmen, workers or skalds were not vikings, even if they were capable warriors themselves.

** On a related note: '''Lycanthrope''' specifically means werewolf (it comes from Ancient Greek and literally means "wolf person"). Some works erroneously use it to mean any were-creature. A better term to use would be ''werebeast'' or '''therianthrope''' (literally "beast person") if "werebeast" is too boring for you.

* Originally, '''Waifu''' (and its SpearCounterpart term '''Husbando''') referred to a fictional character that a person loved obsessively, to the point [[PerverseSexualLust they would marry the character if given the chance]]. But because it's possible for any character to inspire that level of obsession, it eventually meant "character one loved the most", then eventually "favorite character" or plain "cute girl/boy", which coincided with the point where phrases like "seasonal waifu" (i.e. favorite character ''that season'') started being used and unintentionally brought up imagery of philandering or polyamory. The original definition would eventually be a subset term, such as specifying that a person has "only one waifu".

* '''Spinster''' simply means "unmarried woman" as the female version of "bachelor" (its etymology comes from women who spun cloth for a living, since they could support themselves without a man). Some countries' marriage certificates will list the "spinster" and "bachelor" instead of bride and groom (or spouse 1 and spouse 2, etc). But in other countries, including the United States, the word as picked up decidedly negative connotations in ways [[DoubleStandard "bachelor" has not]].

* In modern Western weddings, the '''maid of honor''' is the senior-most bridesmaid, usually the bride's sister or best friend. But technically, if the MOH herself is married, then she would be the ''matron'' of honor. However, that term is rarely used today, as most modern women don't find the word "matron" very flattering. Instead, the bride's attendants are her "maids" regardless of their own marital status. Interestingly, this is one of the few modern uses of 'maid' that keeps its original meaning of "young woman" and not "housekeeper", as the word has otherwise evolved into.

** Originally, the term “midwest” or “middle west” denoted the part of the US between the Appalachian Mountains and ''the Mississippi river''. In everyday usage, the term has now shifted to mean the Great Plains (between the Mississippi river and the Rocky Mountains); the former Midwest--states such as Ohio and Indiana--is now generally treated as part of the East. (The Census Bureau, however, defines the Midwest as the northern states between Pennsylvania and the Rockies, thus including the Great Plains and the Great Lake states.)

** Similarly, accuracy and precision are often confused when describing the merits of a firearm - they are often described as accurate when the correct word would be precise. Only a human operator can make the firearm ''accurate''; a firearm is ''precise'' when it can consistently place shots in a predictable location.

* '''Akimbo''': The word "akimbo" means "bowed" or "bent", and is most often used for arms bent with hands resting on hips. Perhaps because this pose is often used by two-pistoled gunfighters in media, the word is sometimes mistakenly applied to any situation in which someone has a matched pair of weapons in his hands. The name of the trope GunsAkimbo features this mistake, though that's just following the terminology that had already become commonplace by the time we had a page for it.[[note]]It's likely 1997's ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'' which was [[TropeNamers the first]] to use the word "akimbo" in the context of "using one gun in each hand".[[/note]] A noted example of the correct meaning is a one-time ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' villain named Arms Akimbo, whose arms are permanently stuck in place, hands on his hips.

** For that matter, the first use of the word "robot" was in ''Theatre/{{RUR}}''. The robots in the play were organic constructs, not mechanical ones that are often pictured when the word is used. (Specifically, "robot" is the Czech word for "slave", and the original concept of robots was that they were like slaves in that they were sentient beings working for humans, except they were artificial.)
** The proper term for a [[RobotGirl female man-like robot]] is gynoid - "woman-like". In this sense the words are still used in context of obesity.
** While the word 'Gynoid' can be used when it is desired to refer specifically to robots resembling females, the word 'Android', depending on the greek root word used, refers to 'man' in the same way English does, that being simultaneously to both a male person and humankind as a whole. Thus, a gynoid is technically still an android...

* If one is being extremely literal an '''Audience''' means a group of people ''listening'' to a given thing (as it comes from the same root as "audio".) If it's in a visual medium, they should instead be called '''viewers.''' The Latin equivalent would be something like "Vidience", but that's not a word.
* The word '''average''' came from the French word for a damaged ship or shipment, avarie. This was anglicized into average during the colonization of the Americas, when there was a lot of English-to-French trade. Every time a shipment was damaged, they would calculate the total amount each person would have to pay by splitting the total up into equal pieces. Taking an average eventually moved from "splitting a sum up into equal parts" to "the most equal division of a certain sum", which is its modern definition. You can see a bit of this old influence in the mathematical average calculation, which still involves adding things up and then dividing them.

** Same goes for the word "buggery," which had originally meant heretic. Its meaning and usage changed to be synonymous with "sodomy."

* A '''bigot''' isn't a racist or sexist or any other kind of "hater" you can think of. In fact, a bigot doesn't judge people at all -- or at least not their intrinsic natures. When the word first became common during the 18th-century Enlightenment, it was used to mean someone who wouldn't tolerate other people's ''opinions'' -- particularly a person's religious beliefs, or lack thereof. The play ''Theatre/InheritTheWind'' uses the word in its original sense frequently. It was probably the TV series ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' that was most responsible for shifting the definition of ''bigot'' all the way to "hater."
* '''{{Bishonen}}''' (美少年[[labelnote:hiragana]]びしょうねん[[/labelnote]]) is only supposed to mean androgynously attractive ''underaged'' (specifically, under 18) males -- a ''bishōnen'' is, after all, by definition a ''[[ShonenDemographic shōnen]]'' or teenage boy -- with 美男子[[labelnote:hiragana]]びだんし[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:romaji]]bidanshi[[/labelnote]] addressing of-age examples. Of course, outside Japan, very few care about this distinction, and ''bishōnen'' is the blanket term for any prettyboy character.

* In modern Western weddings, the '''maid of honor''' is the seniormost bridesmaid, usually the bride's sister or best friend. But technically, if the MOH herself is married, then she would be the ''matron'' of honor. However, that term is rarely used today, as most modern women don't find the word "matron" very flattering. Instead, the bride's attendants are her "maids" regardless of their own marital status. Interestingly, this is one of the few modern uses of "maid" that keeps its original meaning of "young woman" and not "housekeeper," as the word has otherwise evolved into.
* The word '''man''', today taken to mean a male member of humanity, in the original Old English refered to any member of the human species , which today is filled by human. The different sexes were differentiated by the prefixes "wer" for males, becoming '''werman''', and "wyf" for females, becoming '''wyfman'''.

* '''Pedophilia''' is specifically a primary sexual attraction toward prepubescent children. According to the DSM-IV, it can be exclusive (the person is only attracted to children) or non-exclusive (the person is also attracted to adults or at least post-pubescent children), but it must have been acted on in some way - though not necessarily to the point of molesting a child - or it must cause the patient marked distress. Some people would prefer to define the term differently than this -- for example, in such a way that only the exclusive form counts. There are also a few who think the word should be "pedosexual", and they may have a point. (After all, do bibliophiles want to have sex with books?) But regardless of these details, on ''any'' reasonable definition:

** A sexual preference for pubescent children (generally around 11-14 years of age) is not pedophilia, but hebephilia. "Prepubescent" is quite different from merely "under the legal age of consent".
*** One may see the term "ephebophilia" (sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19) used to make a similar distinction. Interestingly, while such a distinction is usually scoffed at in Internet discussion, it can have an enormous impact on the legal/psychological consideration of specific cases.