Words you just don't get

[WellVersedInEtiquette]

I'm reading a book that describes a place as bucolic. I know what it means. I've read it before I just can't get my head to read it as anything other than bubonic.

'raze' as in raze to the ground always pleases me as it sounds like you should be lifting it up when you're actually knocking it flat.

@GallicosCats

Egregious is good when coupled with lie, as it highlights the outlandishness of a lie, but outside of that context it doesn't have huge amount of application that doesn't sound like nonsense

Opaque. I used to think it meant a little bit see-through. I still have to remind myself that it means the opposite when I hear it.

IV I think you might be muddling 'opaque' with 'translucent', which is what 'opaque' glass actually is (or it wouldn't be any use for windows.)

@GallicosCats Yes, that's probably part of it!

I'm sure there is also something relating the word "opaque" to "opals" in the back of my mind... My nan had jewellery with opals in it, and as a child I think I thought they all were semi-transparent, hence opaque (opal-like).

Bucolic agree, sounds like the opposite of what it means. It's got colic for starters.

IVflytrap I was just about to agree with you on opaque and was going to add that for some reason I always link it to opals and their semi-transparency it’s not just me then!

I came on here to say that 'crepuscular' sounded like a nasty rash, but @Parthenope has beaten me to it.

I always get confused by 'vermilion', which sounds as if it ought to mean a vivid green rather than red - the opposite of chartreuse, which sounds red but is actually green.

I'm glad it's not just me! I'll be thinking of other words now. I do agree with the 'raze to the ground' post. Seems the opposite of what it says.

Enervated is exhausted.

I think egregious just used to mean 'great', as in very large.

"Egregious" carries the special meaning of very bad indeed, a real shocker, although not used about tragic accidents, more along the lines yet another fuck-up by, etc.etc.

Notwithstanding.

In my head, it seems like a double negative.

There's an American legal phrase 'moral turpitude' that means "an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community". DH went through a phase of telling me he was full of moral turpitude (he thought it meant very moral). Did mean I got to say to him "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" so all was good

"Shooting in the foot" is widely misused. Some soldiers shot their foot to cause an injury sufficient to get them out of the front line, pretending the gun had fired accidentally. It was deliberate act to harm themselves, not what it has come to mean now, a deed that unexpectedly has the wrong outcome.

I have been using nonplussed incorrectly all this time - now I know better! Thank you MN! I always thought it meant ‘not bothered’ - oops!

I can’t get ‘Anglophile’ or ‘francophile’ as people who love England or France - to be they sound like words for people who HATE England or France.

I also don’t think ‘taciturn’ sounds like what it actually means.

Apparently, so common is the incorrect usage of nonplussed that.It has been added to the dictionary as the 'informal' correct usage!

‘Mutually exclusive’ just can’t remember what it means

@NewNameForHelpPlease It was 3 men from our accounts department. They seemed like relatively intelligent people as well!

After that I figured that maybe most people didn't understand the word and I kept my jokes to myself.

"Zero sum game". It's always used by confident-sounding people but I just don't get what they are on about.

And also "peripatetic". I was once told it specifically meant a travelling music teacher and that stuck, so I get confused when it's a non-music subject!

Someone I used to know was insistent that "ambivalent" meant real hatred and dislike of something.

Whereas I was equally certain it meant "not too bothered either way" or "both are fine" type thing.

I know I am right but his insistence was so annoying!

Philanthropist always used to make me think of philanderer 😂

callmesir
Peripatetic means 'wandering about'.
I never had a problem with 'bucolic', but a boss of mine did. At one staff meeting, he said "You'll have to excuse me today, I'm feeling a bit bucolic"
I had visions of him wearing a smock and chewing a bit of hay!

Hoi polloi, literally 'the many' ; I get irritated when people say 'the hoi polloi'. Double use of 'the'.

For me it’s words that sound like they should have an opposite, but they don’t.

I like the word nonchalant- but chalant isn’t a word. How can you be the negative of something when there’s no positive variation? Makes my head hurt.

Also dismantle. You can’t mantle something so how can you dismantle it?