History Main / YouKeepUsingThatWord

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** Especially confusing for those who like their Greek roots, because 'Schizophrenia' literally means 'Split Personality'.

* '''Manic-depression''' ''does not'' mean "very depressed", but is a different condition more properly referred to as bipolar disorder. Similarly, "chronic" is sometimes misused (of an illness) to mean "severe" rather than the actual meaning of "persistent and/or slowly developing".
** Which, of course, means [[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin the Paranoid Android]] is not at all a 'manically depressed robot'. He's just a very depressed one.
*** And of course he's not really paranoid either.
*** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Unless]], it turns out that he was actually programmed for [[{{Understatement}} long stretches]] of depression followed by long stretches of overconfidence and poor impulse-control....

* '''Immoral''' is knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway; '''amoral''' is, generally, not having a sense of right or wrong in the first place. Gravity and a large rock are amoral; dropping a large rock on your head to kill you is immoral.

** Doubly so as while species is fairly well defined in terms of viable reproduction, and while individual races, families, orders, classes, phyla and kingdoms are well defined in terms of particular phenotypical characteristics there is no clear abstract definition (unlike for species) of when you should consider some novel set of similar creatures to constitute a new phylum (as opposed to a new class) meaning that the terms have little clear meaning outside an Earth biology context. If you say two distantly related alien species are part of the same phylum and I say they are merely part of the same kingdom there is no principled way to resolve the dispute.

** It gets odder than that; it can also be used to distinguish any regime in which power is distributed among many people (generally meaning that important decisions are usually taken by deliberative bodies) rather than given to one person. The first English dictionary by SamuelJohnson defined a republic as "a government of more than one person," and [[ThePrince Niccolo Machiavelli]] was inclined to agree. Thus the distinction is between regimes with only one decision maker (historically called a principality) that might be justifiably identified with autocracy, and regimes with many decision makers, which would include aristocratic regimes like ancient Sparta or the ancient Roman Kingdom (before Tarquin showed up).

*** Whereas within contemporary metaphysics 'world' is used for the totality of all existing things and 'universe' for universe as in cosmology. This becomes confusing for the uninitiated when talk of possible worlds - ways the totality of stuff might, logically, have been - with talk of multiverse theory within physics as entirely reasonable statements like "Even if our universe is not actually part of a multiverse there possible world close to this one in logical space in which our universe does exist as part of a multiverse" are a bit puzzling, especially for those who use 'the world' and 'Earth' interchangeably.

* An '''acronym''' is an initialism which forms a word, such as "laser" ('''l'''ight '''a'''mplification by '''s'''timulated '''e'''mission of '''r'''adiation), "AWOL" ('''a'''bsent '''w'''ith'''o'''ut '''l'''eave), or "amphetamine" ('''a'''lpha-'''m'''ethyl-'''ph'''en'''et'''hyl'''amine''')[[hottip: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]]. Most people use "acronym" as though it were synonymous with "initialism", referring to terms such as "NYPD", "USB" or "MDMA" as acronyms.

** Draw a Venn Diagram. You have a big circled labeled "initialisms" and within it a smaller circle titled "acronyms". The latter are a subclass of the former.
** Where does CINCPAC fall?
*** CINCPAC is an acronym, as it is pronounced as a word.
*** No, it isn't. SQL is not an acronym, despite people saying "sequel" (or "squeal"). Ditto WYSIWYG, NASDAQ, NASCAR, etc. (Neither is AWOL, for that matter, despite the above.) the key distinction is that the initialism is used to form a word. If you want to know if it is an acronym, ask yourself if it would be subject to all applicable grammatical rules. Always being capitalized is a pretty sure sign that it isn't.
* '''Fascism''' is a political ideology that combines political radicalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, corporatism and certain forms of Social Darwinism. Most modern people and political parties that don't self-identify as "fascist" problably aren't fascists. Definite no-no's include communists, liberals, internationalists, socialists, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, [[GeorgeOrwell Youth Hostels, Gandhi, women and dogs.]]
** It can also refer to an economic system "Where the means of production are privately held but controlled by the government".
*** That's debatable, but even if that definition is complete and just as common as the one in the original entity, it's beside the point because all the definite no-nos to the original entry are definite no-nos to this as well.
**** "Fascist" is too specific a word to be used as a synonym for "mean," "intolerant," or "murderous." Try "bullying" or "aggressive" instead. Also, fascism is by its nature secular and even anti-clerical, so there is no good reason to toss around religiously loaded terms like "Islamofascist" or "Christofascist."
***** Actually, Mussolini was supported the Catholic church. They are not necessarily secular or anti-clerical....
**** In most political debates, "fascist" ''really'' means [[GodwinsLaw the guy i disagree with]].
** Relatedly '''Corporatism''' refers to the doctrine promoted by Mussolini that society should function as a body (Latin: ''corpus'') in which each of the various sectors of society (government, business, labor, etc.) are treated as "organs" within the body, interdependent and working toward the betterment of the whole. Naturally, being a socialist, Mussolini saw the government as the "brain." Business working for the betterment of the state is ''exactly the opposite'' of the way the term "corporatism" is misused as a slander by Western leftists who think business controls government. Other than stemming from the same Latin root, "corporatism" has absolutely nothing to do with the English word "corporation."
*** Mussolini once phrased it as "merger of state and corporate power". Obviously, if they are not ''separate'', the government have to be the way of the "corporate" influence, and cannot be its object. E.g. if the Senate is legally composed only of lobbyists--local or business--reducing this to "Senate is controlled by these interests" would be as inaccurate as saying that "Senate controls them".
*** I think you mean "being a ''dictator'', Mussolini saw the government as the brain;" Mussolini was a fascist in terms of his economic views, not a socialist.

** I have had this discussion more times than I can count, and most of the time I eventually find out that the person I an talking to has never read the Constitution and really has no idea what it actually says! PLEASE! EVERYONE! go to Google and type in "Constitution of the United States" and read the damn thing! I have no doubt that you will be amazed at the rights you are supposed to have that some politician has decided you are better off without!

** Just to avoid making a false equivalency, "vulva" (correct me if I'm wrong) describes the entire external genitalia of the female, while "vagina" is one element of the internal genitalia (which also include the uterus, ovaries, etc).
*** Allow me to correct you then. The vulva is external only.

** You can also correctly use 'look well' for 'look carefully', or 'look skillfully'. Similarly, the above (post edit) could correctly refer to a product that as part of its function interprets visual data. (A robot or something; if it's solely a camera, then its working is synonymous with its looking, and so it's still incorrect.)

--> Whenever someone misuses this word, such as, "We're going to decimate them!" I usually ask, "We're going to murder 10% of their ranks as punishment for misdeeds?" It usually earns me a Look.

* Similarly to the above, the word '''unique''' is often used as a substitute for the word "special" or "unusual" when its actual definition is "one-of-a-kind" (i.e. Not just rare but totally singular). This has led rise to common use of the phrase "very unique" which is meaningless when using the original definition, and again converts a word once designed to avoid hyperbole into another hyperbole...

*** Legally speaking, burglary doesn't have to involve stealing (larceny and theft cover those). Burglary is the entrance (some jurisdictions require forced entry), of a building (some jurisdictions require it be a dwelling, some of them don't require it to belong to somebody else, meaning you can potentially burglarize yourself) with the intent to commit a crime therein (usually defined as any felony, but often includes some misdemeanor theft). You don't even have to actually complete the act you entered the building to do. If Alice enters Bob's house with the intent to murder Bob (or steal from him, assault him, or write a bad check while sitting on his couch), she has committed burglary, whether or not she actually does the deed. In some areas, even if you change your mind about committing the crime once your inside, you can still be on the hook for burglary. As a result, burglary is a favorite of prosecutors as it can be added as a charge to many different acts. The case law of what constitutes "building" and "entry" can get a little silly.

** The idea that "suicide" is a verb might come from other languages. In French, for instance, "suicide" is certainly a verb--a reflexive one, at that. (I don't know if other Romance languages have this construction...or, for that matter, what languages.)
*** At least in Portuguese it's also a reflexive verb. Ironically, saying "Ele suicidou", the literal translation of "He suicided", is wrong, but the cause is different (the verb is reflexive, so the correct is "Ele '''se''' suicidou")

* On a related note, the terms '''evolution''' and '''natural selection''' are used interchangeably. Evolution refers to the observed changes over time, while natural selection is the theorized (real meaning) mechanism for those changes.
** Together with sexual selection, which is an entirely different mechanism but equally observable and at least as important as natural selection.
* Likewise, "evolution" is not interchangeable with "the origin of ''Homo sapiens'' from lower primates" or "the origin of life". If you don't believe any origin of life other than a literal interpretation of Genesis, what you're rejecting is scientific consensus about events which took place billions of years ago and can only be indirectly observed through fossil and DNA evidence. But if you "don't believe in evolution", you're just as demonstrably wrong as if you "don't believe in gravity" -- evolution can be observed in a laboratory in a matter of hours, using the example of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
** Furthermore, the '''word''' "evolution" is simply a synonym for "change." People often use it as a shorthand to refer to the origin of species through biological mutation over extreme amounts of time, but it still simply means "change." So next time you hear two scientists in a movie say "the creature has evolved significantly over the past week," think twice before shouting YouFailBiologyForever.

** Both sides of the Evolution debate frequently misuse the word "theory." Creationists attribute too much uncertainty to the term, using "theory" to imply mere speculation, but many Darwinists attribute too ''little'' uncertainty, claiming that "theory" is interchangeable with "fact." Neither of these is true, as a theory is an explanation which is significantly more likely than all competing proposals, but which may still be proven wrong at any time, however unlikely that may be.

* Something being ''random'' means that it has no clear predictability or arrangement. It doesn't mean "kooky" or "off the wall", and neither sporks nor waffles nor [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom doom]] are "random" (see also: the 4chan meme "Katy")

* '''Bipolar''' is an ''adjective,'' not a noun. It's either "my friend is bipolar" or "my friend has bipolar disorder," ''NOT'' "my friend has bipolar."
* '''Chiropractic''' is also an adjective. The noun form is '''chiropraxy.''' Use it.

* '''Fascism''' is a political ideology that combines political radicalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, corporatism and certain forms of Social Darwinism. It is also, no matter what certain conservatives say, on the political ''right'' Most modern people and political parties that don't self-identify as "fascist" problably aren't fascists. Definite no-no's include communists, liberals, internationalists, socialists, the Republican Party, [[GeorgeOrwell the Democratic Party, Youth Hostels, Gandhi, women and dogs.]]

**** "Fascist" is too specific a word to be used as a synonym for "mean," "intolerant," or "murderous." Try "bullying" or "aggressive" instead.
**** Fascist regimes may or may not be secular or anti-clerical. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. The most common approach seems to be trying to use the public's faith to manipulate them into supporting you (''Got Mit Uns'').

**Relatedly '''Corporatism''' refers to the doctrine promoted by Mussolini that society should function as a body (Latin: ''corpus'') in which each of the various sectors of society (government, business, labor, etc.) are treated as "organs" within the body, interdependent and working toward the betterment of the whole. Naturally, being a dictator, Mussolini saw the government as the "brain." Business working for the betterment of the state is ''exactly the opposite'' of the way the term "corporatism" is misused as a slander by Western leftists who think business controls government. Other than stemming from the same Latin root, "corporatism" has absolutely nothing to do with the English word "corporation."
* And while we're on the subject, a '''Socialist''' refers to an economic theory which proposes communal ownership of ''the'' means of production and distribution, usually (but not always) by bringing those means under the control of the state. The use of the singular "''the''" means ''ALL'' the means of production and distribution in a particular sector. If there are still private competitors, it's not socialism. Also ''''not'''' socialism: Adjusting tax rates, bailing out certain companies, taking control of those companies (providing privately owned competitors still exist), providing social or financial assistance to the poor and unfortunate, "wealth redistribution" or universal healthcare (again, so long as private competitors still exist). '''None''' of these have '''anything''' to do with Socialism.

**Relatedly '''Corporatism''' refers to the doctrine promoted by Mussolini that society should function as a body (Latin: ''corpus'') in which each of the various sectors of society (government, business, labor, etc.) are treated as "organs" within the body, interdependent and working toward the betterment of the whole. Naturally, being a socialist, Mussolini saw the government as the "brain." Business working for the betterment of the state is ''exactly the opposite'' of the way the term "corporatism" is misused as a slander by Western leftists who think business controls government. Other than stemming from the same Latin root, "corporatism" has absolutely nothing to do with the English word "corporation."
*** Mussolini once phrased it as "merger of state and corporate power". Obviously, if they are not ''separate'', the government have to be the way of the "corporate" influence, and cannot be its object. E.g. if the Senate is legally composed only of lobbyists--local or business--reducing this to "Senate is controlled by these interests" would be as inaccurate as saying that "Senate controls them".
***I think you mean "being a ''dictator'', Mussolini saw the government as the brain;" Mussolini was a fascist in terms of his economic views, not a socialist.

* '''Fascism''' is a political ideology that combines political radicalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, corporatism and certain forms of Social Darwinism. Most modern people and political parties that don't self-identify as "fascist" problably aren't fascists. Definite no-no's include communists, liberals, internationalists, socialists, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, [[GeorgeOrwell Youth Hostels, Gandhi, women and dogs.]]

**** "Fascist" is too specific a word to be used as a synonym for "mean," "intolerant," or "murderous." Try "bullying" or "aggressive" instead. Also, fascism is by its nature secular and even anti-clerical, so there is no good reason to toss around religiously loaded terms like "Islamofascist" or "Christofascist."
*****Actually, Mussolini was supported the Catholic church. They are not necessarily secular or anti-clerical....

* "Bipolar" is an ''adjective,'' not a noun. It's either "my friend is bipolar" or "my friend has bipolar disorder," ''NOT'' "my friend has bipolar."
* "Chiropractic" is also an adjective. The noun form is "chiropraxy." Use it.

*** It makes more sense once you realise that 'agora' in this case refers to what the Romans called the 'forum', rather than your run-of-the-mill farmers' market.

** And "Cretin" meant a person from the isle of Crete, before it was used as a medical term; one can imagine what the Greeks thought of them, given the way that the term has evolved.