
How long should we cling to a word's original meaning? (2011) - Tomte
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/04/the_nonplussed_problem.html
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dghf
Two usages that Ernest Gowers bemoaned in _The Complete Plain Words_ , written
c. 1950, but which seem unexceptional today: "phenomenal" to mean "prodigious"
(rather than simply "perceptible to the senses"), and "meticulous" to mean
"scrupulous" (rather than "overly and timidly careful"). I think it's too late
to save or revive their previous meanings, but it's a shame to lose those
nuances.

~~~
tptacek
According to M-W, "overly and timidly careful" wasn't its original meaning
either; it simply meant "fearful". Both "scrupulous" (which is not precisely
the same as "painstakingly careful") and "overly careful" are adopted
meanings, not the originals, so why lament one and not the other?

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Mz
_Disinterested third party_ still works. I have no problem using
_disinterested_ to both mean _lacks material interest, thus is likely neutral_
and also _not interested in the subject matter_ depending on context. The
framing of the example sentence sounded to me like it meant the latter. I
think _disinterested_ still works to suggest potential neutrality if you frame
it properly.

This is true of quite a lot of words. Many words have multiple meanings and
which meaning applies is signalled by context. "I run for exercise" and "I run
this company" and "I will run for (political) office" are all distinct
meanings of the word _run_. It is only confusing if context is not clearly
signalled.

When I was considering taking up GMing a role playing game, my gaming buddies
understood my interest in _running (a gaming campaign)._ My father thought I
meant pursuing vigorous exercise.

This kind of flexibility of language is normal and healthy. It allows for
communicating many things with relatively few words, it allows for nuance, it
allows for double entendre and for subtle communication that conveys one thing
to one group but not necessarily another. This can be important for
subterfuge, or simply for signalling information to a minority of people in
public without completely derailing a discussion.

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ScottBurson
Interesting -- according to dictionary.com [0], _fulsome_ is another one where
the meaning that seems to be recently emerging, and therefore nonstandard, is
actually the original (in this case dating back to the 13th century). I tend
to agree with this author, though, that "offensively excessive" is a useful
meaning; we have words for the other meaning, like "abundant" and "copious".

A lot of these I don't personally care too much about, but to see _hoi polloi_
and _nonplussed_ used in approximately the opposite of their original senses
... leaves me nonplussed.

[0]
[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fulsome](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fulsome)

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empath75
You should use the word’s original meaning for as long as the _intended
audience_ will understand it. An article in the New Yorker should have
different standards than a buzzfeed post.

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hashmal
How far do you have to go to find a word's "original meaning"? The concept
itself is ridiculous.

~~~
danmaz74
The concept is less ridiculous that you might think, because other people
could still attribute the "original meaning", or any other intermediate
meaning, to the words you use. If that's the case, they won't understand you -
and vice versa.

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_0ffh
A pet peeve of mine is when a significant percentage of the population use a
words' old meaning, but still some people argue like:

"A lot of people use this word differently now, so just accept that and go
along with it!"

Well, a lot of people also still use that word as it used to be, so why can't
they just accept that and go along with it?

~~~
kmm
Nobody does that. I've never seen someone correct "fewer" to "less" or seen
someone get scorned for using "literally" to mean "as actually happened". Only
the other way around happens.

When people say "go along with it", they're just saying the new usage should
be accepted as well, not completely supercede the older one.

~~~
_0ffh
"they're just saying the new usage should be accepted as well, not completely
supercede the older one"

You can argue that accepting both meanings may lead to dangerous
miscommunication, so it's vital that one interpretation supersedes [sic] the
other. Some people who are on board with that argument are also champions of
new word interpretations.

Example regarding the word "factoid" right there:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358604)

"Nobody does that. [...] Only the other way around happens."

If a new meaning pops up for an old word, at what point does correcting
someone's mistake become being a language nazi? When one person decides that a
word now has a new meaning? One per cent of the population? Ten? I honestly
don't know, but as long as it's not clear that the accepted meaning has really
changed, I call "the other way around" plainly "correcting a mistake".

I'd rather not enable people who will stick to the first thing they have
"learned" about a topic, no matter if it turns out to be mistaken.

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resu_nimda
Given the nature of your post, the incorrect usage of [sic] really stands
out...

There aren't really any set-in-stone rules about language, the "accepted
meaning" of something depends entirely on who you ask. Personally I am more of
a descriptivist than a prescriptivist, as long as I can understand what the
person means I'm fine, I might even encourage "incorrect" usages if they are
funny or somehow apt.

On another note, I like that you recalled and found a seemingly unimportant
comment of yours from over two years ago that related to changing word usage.

~~~
_0ffh
As I hoped I had made clear, I'm also more of a descriptivist than a
prescriptivist. And I'm not against being creative with words now and then. I
just wouldn't insist on every one of them becoming the new norm. My criticism
is that even when mainstream usage is divided (so descriptivism will not take
you very far), people who argue for changing the meaning tend to argue
unfairly that seemingly only the people on their side of the divide count. All
the others are just boring old prescriptivists. I, on the opposite, would
rather go with established use as long as it's not clear that the accepted
meaning has really changed.

About sic btw, it indicates that the spelling of a word is exactly the
intended one. Even if that spelling is /not/ wrong (afaik). It was meant to
gently draw attention to that spelling without giving offence.

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WalterBright
My annoyance is "literally", where it is now used merely for emphasis rather
than the sentence being a metaphor.

~~~
quadrangle
Etymologically, doesn't "literal" just mean related to written word? I thought
the implication was that "literally" is like asserting something is true to
the extent that you would document it that way in official records.

~~~
WalterBright
If I said "he is literally as high as a kite" that would pedantically mean
he's a hundred feet off the ground, but these days "literally" just adds
emphasis.

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wollstonecraft
Let's officially dump the original meaning of "beg the question" because it's
a poor translation from Latin.

~~~
Simon_says
Agreed. While we're at it, can we also drop the meaning of "raise the
question"? That one is a mistranslation of English ...

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nqzero
this loss of meaning in words, of everything moving towards the middle,
towards meaninglessness, is not purely a linguistic problem - without those
subtle meanings, english speakers (or at least those whose primary mental
processing is in the audio loop) aren't capable of thinking subtly

and that's a huge loss - those meanings, those concepts, are high level
abstractions that capture critical aspects of human nature, and without them a
people are less self aware and more easily manipulated

orwell foretold the loss of these words, though he envisioned it requiring
force - the reality is far darker

~~~
criddell
> english speakers [...] aren't capable of thinking subtly

That's a little hyperbolic. Is there any example where a word changing meaning
has left us unable to express something?

The meaning of old words change. New words are born. I think it's wonderful.

~~~
dghf
> Is there any example where a word changing meaning has left us unable to
> express something?

I imagine it rarely or never leaves us unable to express something _at all,_
but it may leave us unable to express it so succinctly. There are, as far as I
know, no exact synonyms for "disinterested", "meticulous" and "phenomenal" in
the senses in which they were formerly used. We can still express each of
those meanings in other ways, but we need a phrase rather than a single word.

~~~
tptacek
What's the sense of "meticulous" that the word has lost?

 _Later_

This was answered upthread. Thanks!

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timthorn
The use of "may" to mean "might" frustrates me. Usually the meaning is clear
but sometimes it can negate the meaning of a sentence.

~~~
logicallee
When can it negate the meaning of a sentence?

~~~
quadrangle
I may not be there. I might not be there.

The former, using old meaning, indicates that you aren't permitted, which is
the negating the latter sentence that indicates a possibility of being there.

But "may not" in the old sense seems slightly weird, in the way that
"permitted not" is weird.

~~~
logicallee
[someone downvoted this but I am just asking this for information, not as a
judgment]

I'd like to understand the prescriptivist grammar rule. (So I can apply it
sometimes for people who might know about these rules.)

Under this rule, does any occurrence of "may" mean "permitted", and,
therefore, a sentence like "it may rain tomorrow" is just entirely incorrect -
has no meaning (other than that it is permitted to rain tomorrow)?

So that people following the rule never want editors to allow "it may rain"?
(They always want "it might rain")?

Is a sentence like "I may have been a bit __(adjective)__" likewise
nonsensical? (Meaning, possibly I was a bit (adjective).) Is this past usage
also not allowed/nonsensical? What does "may have" mean under this rule, or is
it forbidden?

Thanks.

~~~
quadrangle
I'm not a prescriptivist myself. I simply like having useful words, which is
something I appreciate about the article in question.

So, I _like_ the idea that "may" could carry that permissive meaning such that
the strictest interpretation is as you suggest. But I don't like it
pedantically in practice.

To be clear: "It may rain" isn't a problem because there's no confusion
possible. I don't care about stretching words in that way. I just like the
idea that the distinction is available for cases where it _is_ meaningful.

If we lose the distinction between "Can I bike there?" and "May I bike there?"
our communication suffers.

But "may" is beyond screwy today. Relatedly, although it's fundamentally wrong
(not just prescriptively, but like my brain has a bad-syntax error feeling
when hearing it), there are places in the U.S. where people say "might could"!
See [https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3211/is-might-
co...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3211/is-might-could-a-
correct-construct) as on example discussion.

Personally, I'm a non-prescriptivist, non-pedantic, amateur linguist who like
people actually thinking about words and using them thoughtfully and
intentionally.

~~~
logicallee
This was a useful response, thank you. I think I will only correct "may" to
"might" if there's a genuine chance for confusion. I like the use of "may" as
"possibly".

For example it's an easy way to say, "maaaaybe I was." (I may have been.)
Whereas "I might have been" is about a conditional - it means something
different than "maybe I was".

Come to think of it, our very word "maybe" isn't about permission - and it
doesn't have the form "mightbe".

Still, it is useful to know what prescriptivists think, so thanks for the
summary.

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consto
Language is a means of thinking and of communication. If the old meaning is
still well understood by the audience and helps communicate ideas it would be
wise to use it. However if it hurts, not helps, it isn't worth sticking to the
original meaning just for the sake of it. Context matters.

