Page 6 | I have been using this word wrongly

Testina · 09/01/2023 23:32

thisplaceisweird · 09/01/2023 12:46

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'

I was just reading through before I duplicated by adding this one!

I know what it means but I just can’t use it, because it just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

I don’t even think it’s the plussed /fussed rhyme. It’s just the “non” at the start that gets me every time!

SD1978 · 09/01/2023 23:47

Thanks. I also didn't realise it meant that- I assumed it also meant laid back, accepting of the result or issue!

Buttalapasta · 10/01/2023 06:42

I didn't know that about sanguine either. For a long time I thought bucolic meant sort of angry or annoyed. It doesn't sound like its meaning.

GerundTheBehemoth · 10/01/2023 06:55

DuchessOfPort · 09/01/2023 20:48

Aquiline (as in nose) - I always thought it mean sort of narrow and elegant and straight and actually it means curved, like a big honking Roman nose!

all those heroines with aquiline noses I imagined completely wrong!

It comes from Aquila - Latin for eagle. So, a big noble downcurved nose that resembles an eagle's bill.

ThePoshUns · 10/01/2023 07:02

I thought the same of aquiline as well.

CaptainMyCaptain · 10/01/2023 07:45

Circumferences · 09/01/2023 21:54

I turned 40 not long ago, and have for my entire life misunderstood the word "grifter".

Thankfully it's not a word I've needed to use or come across much. I genuinely thought it meant someone who is hard working, who puts in a lot of effort to get stuff done. How that passed me by who knows.

That's a grafter.

Kalasbyxor · 10/01/2023 07:54

Not definition related, but I just listened to the Today Programme, and one of the correspondents said "prelli-MIN-ery" instead of preliminary, which made me smile: "These are prelli-MIN-ery results". When I came to the UK and was learning English, I had a friend who would regularly mis-stress and mispronounce words so I would learn it wrongly, for a bit of a laugh. It took me ages to weed out the ones they'd deliberately taught me from my voca-BU-lary 😂

FatOaf · 10/01/2023 09:13

one of the correspondents said "prelli-MIN-ery" instead of preliminary

It's hard to work out how you're saying they pronounced it. Are you saying there wasn't sufficient stress on the second syllable?

Today - and BBC programmes in general - have major problems with presenters' swallowing or incorrectly stressing syllables. The ones that irk me most are saying "decayed" instead of "decade" and "temporally" instead of "temporarily".

Flapjackquack · 10/01/2023 09:26

Not on the BBC but I heard a (British) doctor on SM pronounce cervical ser-vi-KAL rather than CER-vik-all (if you get the difference). It took me a moment to work out what they were saying. They are definitely a doctor so now I am wondering if I’ve been saying it wrong? It relates to the cer-vix not the cer-vi-x?

Flapjackquack · 10/01/2023 09:56

Actually it was more ser-vy-KAL. Either way, strange!

MotherOfHouseplants · 10/01/2023 10:04

I’ve also heard ser-VIE-kal to rhyme with ‘Michael’ before now.

EyesOnThePies · 10/01/2023 10:13

OP, I think the use of sanguine is nuanced, and a slightly different version of optimistic.

Whereas you might interpret optimistic as lively and bright hope, in general I see sanguine used more in the context of hard times and being not pessimistic. So relaxed that things will be ok, rather than doom and fear filled. So that is very like chilled, really. This is how I hear it used, anyway.

NotAnotherBathBomb · 10/01/2023 10:25

puppydisaster · 09/01/2023 09:56

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?

Oh I'd have thought it referred to bleeding out

NotAnotherBathBomb · 10/01/2023 10:30

This is me with 'decadent'. I've always heard it in the context of being lavish. But according to google it's a noun referring to someone who is lavish, but as an adjective (which is how I use it) it refers to 'decay'? They are the opposite of each other in meaning

NotAnotherBathBomb · 10/01/2023 10:31

Oh and I still have to pause and think about 'complicit' and 'implicit' and which to use

SeaweedGarters · 10/01/2023 10:58

NotAnotherBathBomb · 10/01/2023 10:30

This is me with 'decadent'. I've always heard it in the context of being lavish. But according to google it's a noun referring to someone who is lavish, but as an adjective (which is how I use it) it refers to 'decay'? They are the opposite of each other in meaning

It's a fair point, but Google (understandably) isn't being very nuanced. 'Decadent' in the sense of 'self-indulgent' is linked to the sense of 'declining, decaying' via the idea that self-indulgence is a form of moral decay eg the fall of ancient Rome being linked to the ruling elite glutting themselves with sensual luxuries and distracting the proles with bread and circuses etc. The use of 'decadent' as an adjective you might use for a particularly good chocolate dessert comes off of that ( I suppose implicit also is the idea that this is self-indulgent and potentially indicative of moral or dental decay!)

NotAnotherBathBomb · 10/01/2023 17:42

SeaweedGarters · 10/01/2023 10:58

It's a fair point, but Google (understandably) isn't being very nuanced. 'Decadent' in the sense of 'self-indulgent' is linked to the sense of 'declining, decaying' via the idea that self-indulgence is a form of moral decay eg the fall of ancient Rome being linked to the ruling elite glutting themselves with sensual luxuries and distracting the proles with bread and circuses etc. The use of 'decadent' as an adjective you might use for a particularly good chocolate dessert comes off of that ( I suppose implicit also is the idea that this is self-indulgent and potentially indicative of moral or dental decay!)

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Ah, that’s makes more sense!

picofmytree · 10/01/2023 17:47

puppydisaster · 09/01/2023 09:56

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?

At a glance I would have assumed it was linked to consanguinity 😳 so it's probably just as well I've never needed to use the word in the past 42 years!

FurryDandelionSeekingMissile · 10/01/2023 17:54

picofmytree · 10/01/2023 17:47

At a glance I would have assumed it was linked to consanguinity 😳 so it's probably just as well I've never needed to use the word in the past 42 years!

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It is, etymologically at least.

Delatron · 10/01/2023 17:57

I’ve just checked nonplussed in online Oxford dictionary - so there’s the official definition then an addition with an ‘informal’ version titled as ‘North American’ as meaning not bothered. Which I thought it meant.

So maybe certain words get wrongly adopted by Americans then they filter back through films and we all learn the wrong definition?

Kalasbyxor · 11/01/2023 00:02

FatOaf, there was no stress on the second syllable.
He said it like smelly-BIN-ery.