Discussion Main / YouKeepUsingThatword

This seems to be saying that anyone who corrects someone else's usage is just a snob trying to be an elitist and shame someone (which is something I know a lot of people believe). I disagree with that. It's basically saying that you can just say anything outside of your experience doesn't deserve a word, that if you've never experienced something (or if you don't want to acknowledge something), you're entitled to just appropriate the word for that thing and use it to mean something that's more relevant to you.

So, imagine a Venn diagram, with Group A's experiences on one side, and Group B's experiences on the other. Basically, you're saying that only things in the middle deserve their own words, and that if there's a word that refers to something Group A never interacts with, they can just take that word and use it to mean something they do interact with... and when they come into contact with someone from Group B, well... they'll just fight over it. Because might makes right?

Someone help me define the difference between ethnicity and nationality. I'm not a very good writer so I can't put it in words but I know there's a difference between the two and how they have been historically used interchangeably but I hope someone can do a better job than I can.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Problems, started by Ghilz on Feb 26th 2011 at 5:18:56 PM

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help, started by BreadBull on Sep 15th 2017 at 12:07:53 PM

So that's what "boondoggle" means. And all this time I've been following English usage and calling them "woggles"...

"Manic-depression does not mean "very depressed"..."

Huh? All of the other entries for this trope are relevant, but NO ONE has ever thought that "manic-depression" means "very depressed." That has literally never happened. What the hell is this person talking about? I'm being completely serious; in my 25+ years on this earth I have never met nor heard of anyone who thinks that means "very depressed."

Conclusion: that troper is making shit up.

"The triangle being four-sided is inconceivable."

Wouldn't that be a triangular pyramid?

I am beginning to think "inception" should go into one of these. After all, inception =/= recursion.

Yet another usage, this time regarding Logical arguments:

Many people use "All X are not Y" when they really mean "Not all X are Y". The latter allows for the possibility for some X to be Y;^note but there would have to be at least 1 X that is not Y; the former does not.

I found this under Very Pedantic:

• Sorcerer is a word which at its roots means caster of lots. It does not mean witchcraft or spellcasting. Furthermore, the practice of casting lots is praised in the ancient Hebrew Old Testament.

Is this correct? The only information I could find on the word's etymology is that is has to do with oracles, but nothing as specific as what the example says.

I think the following entry should be added to either Moderately Pedantic, due to Wiktionary citing such uses as "often used as uncountable, though such use is proscribed," that is: does not have a plural form and is not recommended, respectively:

Media: Originally the plural of medium, in any usage, it is now commonly referred to as either the institutional complex that publishes works of any sort by any means of delivery (e.g. "the mainstream media", "the entertainment media", etc.) or a subset of this complex devoted to event journalism. The latter is also called "the press", itself derived from the instrument (printing press) that produces the print medium.

The reason why I want to add this is that I have seen references to multiple forms of publishing referred to as "mediums" in This Very Wiki.

A literary cycle that consists of four works is not a quadrilogy - it's a tetralogy. Quattuor is four in LATIN, while logos is a Greek word. Similarly, there are no duologies - it's called a dilogy.

"Hypocrisy" is often mis-spelled. "Hippocracy" would mean "Rule by horses." I like that.

Re "I"/"me" distinction. A neat example is "You like her more than I" vs "You like her more than me."

I don't understand the reference to MST 3 K as related to "riff". The meanings of riffing in MST 3 K is usually not "a repeated instrumental melody line in a song" but rather "a clever or witty remark", which is unrelated to the musical meaning of "riff"

Right, so the entry on "unique" has devolved into Thread Mode.

** Merriam Webster disagrees, saying only can mean "few" as in "one of the only / few" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/only

What can we take out so as to make it helpful but not just people going NU-UH! at eachother over and over.

Does anyone else think we should remove the "Very Pedantic" section? Most of the examples given have not been used in that way for centuries, meaning that the pedants are committing the etymological fallacy. If everybody except the pedants uses a word in a particular manner, then I think that the "incorrect" usage is a secondary and just as correct definition.

Where in hell do people understand "decadence" to mean "of or a state of superiority or high quality"?? I've never seen anyone use the term in such a way, and the fact that it's put in the "pedantic" category is outright disturbing to me. I would never expect anyone I talk to to consider decadence being a good thing.

Rewording this whole bit:

Okay, first of all, I can't tell exactly what's going on with the first example.

At first blush, it strongly comes off as someone who's trying to bash Americans in the form of "dirty American culture is polluting my own!" Sort of like people who say "proper" English is British English, and that anything American is an awful corruption, no matter what it is.

However, they struck out "Finnish." So what's going on here? Is the troper talking about the slangification of the word "epic" in the English language, or are they talking about Finnish people applying English slang to Finnish equivalents?

The kicker is, I don't think it was American culture that caused "epic" to become the overused slang it is now. Rather, it was general English-speaking internet culture, namely that of World of Warcraft's player base, and certain other places that best not be named. Though World Of Warcraft is an American-made game, its player base is truly global.

The part about "pathetic," as explained by another troper who didn't edit the original example but instead replied to it, isn't even correct anyway (if the original troper was complaining about its use in English at least).

So, I'm removing that whole spiel out and rewriting the part about "epic."

Two points about 'Sentient/Sapient':

• The page is just plain wrong to construe 'sapience' as the capacity for judgment or intelligence. Sapience is wisdom or sagacity: i.e., an exceptionally high level of judgment or intelligence found only in the wise. The OED says the word has come to be mainly used ironically, for 'would-be wisdom'.

• Is it really 'Very Pedantic' to use 'sentience' for low-level animal experience? In my experience in academia, everyone but everyone uses the word this way. The only time I ever hear people use it for anything else is on the Internet, especially when sci-fi enthusiasts are talking about sentient robots and the like.

The word "gambit" in Chess also counts as an example. I'm just not sure how to phrase it, or how pedantic it is. :X

Is it just me or are all the folders not working?

Is there a reason we have this? Like, at all? This is nothing but bitter pedantry - and it has nothing to do with tropes or media!

When it comes to intelligence tests, people use expressions such as measuring IQ. But that's a bit like saying that you're measuring the miles per hour of a car. You're not measuring its miles per hour, you're measuring its speed, and miles per hour is simply the unit....

This seems to say that the proper usage would be "My g factor is 123 intelligence quotients," which *ahem* feels not quite right to me.

This needs to be re-written (I'll do it myself unless anyone objects in the next day or so):

• America is not a diminituve for United States of America as many happen to think, its actually the name of a continent or supercontinent (Your Mileage May Vary) composed of north America and south America (which are thought of as continents in the US dispite having no major geopolitical barrier between them as central America is a seamless well-blended link between them). I quote wikipedia on here "The earliest known use of the name America for this landmass dates from April 25, 1507, where it was used for what is now known as south America. It first appears on a small globe map with twelve time zones, together with the largest wall map made to date, both created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in France" and add this address; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_(word) for the similiar mistake involving the demonym for someone from the United States.
  • Well yes and no. "America" is useful shorthand, and anyway, what else are you supposed to call a resident or citizen of the United States without doing terrible, terrible things to the English language?
    • A US citizen/resident?
    • Sounds kinda technical/legalistic. How do you say, "I think the guy was an American" or "That's un-American!"?
    • This rates little debate because everyone on the continent prefers to associate themselves by the name of their own country. But it does leave us without clear options in the rare cases we need to refer to all of us together. Trans-American? Pan-American?

1) "America" IS a diminutive for the United States of America in the English language. 2) It's true that there is dispute over whether the Americas are (is?) one or two continents, but it's not just the U.S. who treats them as separate continents. 3) The concept of continents is much more geographic than geopolitical. 4) The Isthmus of Panama, the Panama Canal, and the Panamanian-Colombian border ARE major geopolitical barriers (and at least the Isthmus is a major geographic one as well). See also the Isthmus of Suez and the Suez Canal for a similar potential division between two continents. 5) "[...]for the similiar[sic] mistake involving the demonym for someone from the United States." That demonym is NOT a mistake; see the previous statement over America, as well as the Wikipedia article you referenced.

We have a lot of words that don't belong. Here is a very brief list:

For example: "The word work (as a noun) has many meanings in common usage, including something taking effort to produce, some form of artistic production or a job. However, in physics, 'work' means the amount of energy transferred by a force moving an object. This definition is much less known, and much less used." Okay... and no one misuses it. Not-as-obscure-as-you-think definitions do not count as misuse.

and another: "Similar thing with radical. It's derived from Latin "radix", meaning "root", and doesn't mean "extremist"." Okay, but the word radical does mean does mean drastic and can be extremist. Root words are unimportant, people!

And one more: "Diva is Italian for "goddess," but is usually used in English to mean "arrogant show-biz personality" of either the male or female kind." So what? The word has root in a different language... almost all words in English are,

There are too many like this. Hell, "You Keep Using That Word" is a better example than most of these.

Am I the only one who feels that the entry on "titular" sounds a bit whiney? That one entry seems in need of a rewrite.

Sex/Gender: The distinction between sex and gender is lost on most people. The sexes (male and female) are the two divisions in which many organisms are placed, based upon their reproductive role. The genders (masculine and feminine) refer to social characteristics (such as behavioral norms) associated with males and females, respectively. To illustrate: facial hair is a male characteristic, while courage is a masculine characteristic in many cultures.

This isn't strictly correct gender can mean the social characteristic part, but using it to mean the sex of an individual falls squarely in the definition of gender. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gender

Who decides what's pedantic and what isn't?! For instance, I'm going to change the psychological ones (antisocial and schizophrenic) from Very Pedantic to Less Pedantic, since "usage does not match current primary definition". On the other hand, considering how weird the Romeo and Juliet one is, I'll move it from Less Pedantic to Very Pedantic, considering "most won't notice, few who notice will care". I mean, have you ever heard of that one before? I haven't, and I've heard the psychology complaints a lot. It's not even "widely-contested", nobody talks about it.

Agoraphobia: I Thought It Meant the polar opposite of claustrophobia, i.e. a fear of large, open areas.

Also: "Schizophrenia: Includes psychosis." Isn't Schizophrenia one distinct type of psychosis? So it's the other way 'round, "psychosis includes Schizophrenia"