Misuse of Words vs. Language Moving On

I just happened upon one of those lists of "10 most misused words". Examples included "refute" used as "argue against", "enormity" as "something of enormous proportions", the ubiquitous "less" vs. "fewer", and "decimate", which doesn't really mean "devastate".

With some of those I agree - less and fewer are distinct concepts. In the case of "decimate", I tend to think that that's just language evolving. Even in german, it's used in this sense, probably because the original punishment hasn't existed for centuries.

So, where do you draw the line? Is this just down to subjective estimation, or are there actual linguistic criteria for it?

edited 16th Oct '12 12:35:39 PM by vijeno

Here as with most such issues, I defer to the usage of highly educated speakers & writers. If a Jacques Barzun or George Steiner no longer bother to make certain distinctions or respect older connotations, I won't either. If they do, then I'll consider it fairly normative.

Actually, decimation was practiced into the 20th century. At the very least, WWI Italy and the Soviet Union in WWII practiced decimation.

Oh, interesting. I stand corrected. Bad example. I think the underlying idea is still valid, though.

Some militia groups in Africa still use it, by the way. It's a great terror tactic to cow people and/or gain child soldiers if you use it to cull the boys. Oh... and gain camp prostitutes if you take every 10th girl, too. Heck: why go for a tenth, when you can take/ kill a quarter?

edited 16th Oct '12 3:49:36 PM by Euodiachloris

In 1918, at least one Finnish officer executed every 5th prisoner in a similar fashion.

That said, I think we're a bit off topic.

Look, so long as people aren't saying shit like "irregardless" or "I could care less", I don't really care that much.

edited 16th Oct '12 3:55:51 PM by Balmung

So you could care less about this?

Don't get on my case, I'm a New Yorker at heart.

If people understand you effortlessly when you misuse a word, it's language moving on. If they're confused, you're using it wrong.

Sure, that's a good heuristic, as is the one with George Steiner. Now, the obvious follow-up question is: How do people know when to be confused?

I mean, of course it's not a rigid distinction, where at one moment it is wrong and then suddenly, boom, it's correct. I'm also sure there are many factors involved.

One is probably outdatedness (and coming to think of it, it's probably not actual, objective outdatedness, but the feeling by a populace that a concept is outdated.) Another is similarity of words, and people start confusing them. It might be that a new word has taken over part of an old word's meaning, so the old word is "free" to take on new meaning. (In german, for instance, "Weib" moved from just meaning woman to being a derogative term; at the same time, "Frau" moved from meaning "noble lady" to just meaning woman.) What are other criteria?

The fascinating part is that this doesn't necessarily seem to be related to the "mistake" being common. I'm not an english native speaker, but from what I've seen, I have the impression that "10 items or less" is virtually omnipresent. Personally, I wouldn't have recognized it as wrong until someone pointed it out. But I guess that most native speakers do instantly recognize it as wrong - or not?

^ Based on previous experience as a supermarket cashier, most people don't worry about the grammatical issues of such a sign because they don't see it or mentally translate it to "something that doesn't apply to me" before piling their 30-odd items onto the conveyor belt.

/derail

I'd say no, most people don't recognize the less/fewer distinction as wrong much of the time. It's a technical distinction: one is number, one is uncountable amount. Less and Fewer both mean the same thing: "Not as much as", and there are plenty of situations where either one would be accurate. For example do I have less than three buckets of water, or fewer than three bucketsful? It's still not enough water to fill a bucket three times.

@Vijeno: see, that's the thing, You are not a native speaker, you do not have the same intuitions that a native speaker has, despite being fluent.

You do not know when you are supposed to be confused or when you are not supposed to be confused. You simply are or aren't. Of course when something is confusing is often not consistent across a population (an older generation will be confused by something and a younger generation is not, and vice versa), in which case if you're trying to address everyone you might want to think of a better word to use.

I can't really think of anyone who is confused by 10 items or less vs. 10 items or fewer. I think there are some people who get irrationally angry by 10 items or less, but that's because that's something a grammarian drilled into them when they were children and seeing something flagrantly violate that makes them angry.

One native speaker's viewpoint: "Ten items or less" isn't grammatically precise, and would never pass muster in a written article or formal speech. However, it's a distinction that very few people—even the highly educated—consistently observe in casual, spoken conversation. In a workaday, non-formal context such as the grocery check-out line, "TEN ITEMS OR LESS" isn't likely to be perceived as an error.

Besides, signs often use telegraphic/headline speech, eschewing articles. copulae, and other elements of ordinary syntax. Signwriters and sign-readers are used to sacrificing correctness in the cause of brevity.

Related:

edited 17th Oct '12 10:22:16 AM by 0dd1

Depends on the word. Think like "less/fewer" and "much/many" is just silly to be bothered about. Things like "astound" going from "to strike with lightning" to "amaze" or decimate going from that Roman thing to "anihhilate' isn't really something that should rustle your jimmies. Things like "jihad" or "karma" being misused are problems, because they are things like philosophical concepts and it becomes a problem when people (who don't really understand the concept) misuse them.

I think the crucial step here is when such "misuse" comes into common use. At that point, the language has evolved and it is the old guard's turn to change. Language changes with time, and coming up with new ways to use words (and new words) is part of the process. So in my opinion language evolution is Quality by Popular Vote.

And, hey: English has been doing it since the year dot. Celtic? Meet Saxon-Frisian and change it. Anglo-Saxon, meet Norman French and do some major adaptation. Old and Middle English? Grab every phrase from Latin and Greek you like and run with them. And, while you're at it... grab any other language that isn't nailed down and play with it and yours. Whoo-hoo!

English: why stand still when you can play with any words you please?

I have an avatar that describes that, actually.

edited 19th Oct '12 11:17:16 AM by AceofSpades

Terrific has the opposite meaning to what it used to have in the Nineteenth Century. Fabulous is also used completely differently to what it used to. As is fantastic. It isn't so much the English language moving on as it is the English language jumping a few dimensions and going right through the proverbial looking glass.

And it always has done so. It's a mongrel language. What starts as misuse of words ends up as common usage. Which is terrific, fabulous and totally fantastic.

As someone who writes memos in an official capacity and who hears the English language abused on a regular basis, let me add my 2 cents.

There are roughly two main dialects to American English: an "official" English with lots of proper words and the slang. If I say "He thinks that grill makes his truck look sick." It's slang of course. Official documents (legal and otherwise) break out the dictionary and try real hard to make sure nothing is open to interpretation. The directions on the back of drugs, warning labels etc.

As much as I hate "irregarless", dammit, it's entering into the popular vocabulary. No matter how much you might love it, if your boss sees that word on a TPS report you've typed, don't be surprised if the boss is mad.

RE:Decimate

Well, it still has the "deci" part, so it's a bit annoying when people use it for something not related to being one-tenth.

And "dilapidated" still has the "lapid-" part so it's annoying when people don't use it to mean "Having had some quantity of the stones that it was built from removed to be re-used in another building"...

And awful still has "awe" (sorta), and terrific still has "terror" (sorta sorta), and blah blah blah.

This issue frequently came up when I was finishing my linguistics degree program. In one of my sociolinguistics textbooks, there's actually a lengthy chapter that covers this entire subject. Two major issues it brings up are the propagation and formalization of vernaculars and the potential benefits and negative effects of prescriptive lexicons.

It's interesting to see the etymology of particular words. It's also interesting to see how and why those words evolved. Someone in another thread pointed out how the word "silly" evolved from "innocent", and there are many other words and phrases that changed in some pretty surprising ways. Back-formations, aphretic and aphetic forms, portmanteaus, functional shifts, and lost metaphors say a lot about how language reflects popular culture.

I can understand the inevitability of a changing lexicon, but some people just sound pretentious when they use a particular word to sound smart and articulate. Some of you have already heard a few of my gripes about the use of the word "plethora", and the possessive pronoun "myself" is getting butchered all to hell. I don't believe people should be burned at the stake for certain grammatical and lexical mistakes, but the context and audience matters quite a bit. If you're just having a casual conversation with your buddies, it's not a big deal if you use a word inappropriately. When it comes to academia and professional environments, you need to make sure you're using the correct terms, especially if you're written work or recorded lectures are going to be published.

As a professor of mine put it a few years back, many lower-class students can spare themselves a lot of trouble by just using simpler terms in their essays instead of trying to go for the bigger, fancier sounding ones and running the risk of screwing them up.

edited 22nd Oct '12 8:00:09 AM by Aprilla

It is wonderful that a professor would give such advice to the lower classes.