To wonder how the word 'mortified' has come to mean horrified?

[MyChildDoesntNeedSleep]

Just genuinely wondering. I don't think I've heard it used correctly in the last four years. Is it just the area I live in? I had to check the definition again today after yet another person used it in a strange context as I had started to doubt myself!

No, YANBU. I've heard it used incorrectly too. As a pedant it does irritate me rather.

Doesn't it mean embarrassed?

I thought it meant so embarrassed you wanted to curl up and die.

I could easily be wrong.

humiliated ashamed horrified

All seem on a spectrum?

Lots of people use it incorrectly, but the meaning hasn't changed as far as I know.

(which can be very confusing - Why are you embarrassed about something that isn't your fault? Oh, you've misunderstood the meaning of the word "mortified". How mortifying for you.)

Haven't yet noticed it being used instead of horrified. Thanks for the warning

Horrified as in really embarrassed? I'm not sure I get how they're using it.

I take to mean extremely embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed.

I've heard it used that way too. It makes me want to scream at people. I've even seen it on here 'AIBU to be mortified that my MIL wants to take my DD away on a week's holiday'

I'm not quite sure how this definition creep happened

I used it on a thread earlier and meant embarrassed, which is correct.

It's pretty much accepted as interchagable nowadays is it not?

Evidently jbck but how the hell did that happen?

No, it isn't interchangeable!! It's thick and wrong!

Sorry, I'm getting over excited but it's like people saying 'innit' at the end of sentences like 'Nah, Kyle, you're not having a packet of crisps, innit'

It means something very specific. That you were so embarrassed you wanted to die. That's it. It just ruins the word if it means a more general shocked. It's not more clever because it has three syllables

I've only ever used or heard it used as meaning absolutely toe-curlingly embarrassed and ashamed, eg "I was mortified to look up and discover the car that stopped for me at the zebra crossing was a hearse, with cortège". Actually happened to me a few weeks ago. I really wanted the ground to swallow me up

I hardly think it's on the same level as innit!

I wouldn't personally use it instead of horrified but lots of words come to mean something other than their original meaning in this way. I don't think they are so far removed from each other as to be unable to see a connection.

The OED says:

"1Cause (someone) to feel very embarrassed or ashamed: she was mortified to see her wrinkles in the mirror (as adjective mortifying) how mortifying to find that he was right

2 Subdue (the body or its needs and desires) by self-denial or discipline: return to heaven by mortifying the flesh

3 [no object] (Of flesh) be affected by gangrene or necrosis: a scratch or cut in Henry’s arm had mortified "

It's correct.

It may not have been correct use then, but it is now. Language evolves with usage.

What are you on about, lougle?

It doesn't mean the same think at all though. Mortified means being really embarrassed. Shocked/extremely surprised is a very different feeling. Apart from the fact that they are extremes of emotion usually felt very intensely for a short period; there's nothing really in common between them.

Particularly when it applies to someone else: 'I was mortified that the head was going out with my son's teacher'. It just doesn't actually make any sense.

"It means something very specific. That you were so embarrassed you wanted to die. That's it."

Very few people feel so embarrassed that they actually want to die, to be fair. It's hyperbole. Mortified is a hyperbolic word, in that sense, so it's a little unfair to criticise people for using the word hyperbolically.

MyChild I mean exactly what I said - the words we use change with usage. Language evolves and word meanings do too.

Tomato tomato

Although I don't agree with Lougle.

You just said its correct, although the definitions you pulled out of the dictionary proved otherwise

Well I do in the evolution bit just not the definition bit.

Your definition is what I'm saying lougle. It says nothing about being generally shocked and horrified. And yes, of course it's hyperbole. That's not the issue though

I'm not arguing that it's evolved , just asking why. Have you read the OP?

It is used in that (incorrect) context a lot in these parts.