I have been using this word wrongly

[puppydisaster]

For my whole adult life I thought "sanguine" meant laid-back, chilled out, resigned to what fate would dole out.

As in "I used to get stressed about exams but I'm more sanguine now I'm older".

I found out this week that "sanguine" means optimistic! So obviously the above sentence still makes sense but not how I intended it.

What on earth is the word I want to use?

I always thought "downtown" meant a sleazy area - strange place for Petula Clark to go.
A night in central London was always "going uptown" when I was at school.

Tbh, if most people understand it as laid back in terms of unworried, which I think is what they do, then that use is fine.

Discrete/discreet is I think people literally not realising they are two different words.

My mum does this! I grew up hearing things like "can you stop being ignorant and acknowledge that I'm speaking to you?" and "take your headphones off, that's so bloody ignorant".
I'm not sure people who say that mean 'ignoring' I thought they meant 'ignorant of good manners' i.e. rude. So they used the word wrong and I misunderstood the way they were using it? Not that I've heard it used that way very much, mainly on here.

I did it deliberately... 😄

What did you think "pinnacle" meant, out of interest?
@puppydisaster

I thought it meant like key, or central, as in 'the pinnacle piece of information in this discussion is...' 😂

That's so interestign that so many people had the exact same mistaken meaning. I used to mistakenly think sanguine meant keen, passionate or enthusiastic, e.g. 'I'm sanguine about taking option A'. It's from the latin sanguis for blood, which I guess associates with passion.

I only recently learned that the word 'depressant' doesn't mean something that makes you depressed! It describes something that reduces your reflexes and responses to stimulus. I told a friend who was feeling down that maybe they drink too much and alcohol is a depressant, he looked at me like I was a complete idiot.

I thought a sight for sore eyes meant the exact opposite until well into adulthood!

Also 'sheepish' - I was late 20s when I realised it meant embarassed, for some reason I always thought it meant 'half-asleep'.

I didn't actually know "discrete" was a word until this thread!

I am clearly not an English language expert, but the incorrect use of sayings or words drives me to distraction, especially in my DH!

The one that really annoys me is his use of "I rest my case". Rather than it being used to convey that his point has been proven, he uses it to effectively say "I'm not winning this argument, so I give up".

That said, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and I'm fairly certain he's dyslexic, although he was never tested as a child. His school just said he needed extra reading help. His DM worked really hard with him to improve his reading as a child, but I realised recently that our 8 year old niece reads better than him now.

It doesn't affect his day to day life and he has a really good job where English skills are not important, so I don't say anything any more.

That's actually adorable. 😄

Same here, OP. I always thought it meant calm and level-headed about things.

Phlegmatic?

It means the masses, the common people.

Bloody hell, you got that wrong.

People often use 'non-plussed' to mean 'not fussed' I guess because it sounds so similar. It actually means 'so surprised and confused that one is unsure how to react'

Yeah, I spent a long time thinking hoi polloi was the opposite of riff raff. You know, I think there might be a kids movie in which a character says hoi polloi and sticks their nose up in the air - obviously aping snobbishness but I misunderstood the gesture as mimicking the hoi polloi - but I can't remember which movie it was.

It’s like nonplussed- sounds the opposite to it’s meaning

Sanguine and Hỏi Polloi errors here too!

Sanguine sounds so laid back and comfy, and hoi polloi sound high and snobby!

One I've always had to think about is: condone. Sounds like you should be condemning or against behaviour when it's actually allowing (bad) behaviour to take place. And it's usually used as with a negative ie. We don't condone etc. I often have to translate in my head to understand what is being said!

My DH does that all the time and it drives me batshit! He just can’t get his head around it.

With the four humours:
Sanguine is taking a hopeful view of a situation, isn’t it? Phlegmatic is more stoic, unemotional about things. Melancholic is pretty obvious and choleric is and angry, ill tempered one.

Laissez-faire?

Don't feel bad OP, I pronounced 'certainly' as 'certain-ate-ly' until my early 20s.

I have no idea why. I just realised one day that I was saying it incorrectly, and never said it incorrectly again 😳

Thank you Hiccup, that really interesting.

Hoi polloi is Greek for 'the people' or 'the many' so strictly speaking when you refer to them you don't need to say the hoi polloi.

Is it because sanguine sounds a bit like 'languid' (ish) maybe?

Languid?

Ha didn't see this!