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.

This thread is fascinating.

One of the real difficulties in word definition is that you have to use other words to define the one you are discussing. Synonyms are rarely identical in meaning and and as this thread brilliantly shows, usuage evolves and can be contrary to official definition.

Maybe there is a spectrum of meaning regarding 'ecconomical use of words'. Laconic may now be used more neutrally but from the dictionary definitions and examples, it definitely seems to correlate closely with terse.

The orgin of the word also definitely suggests abruptness and terseness given the description of the way the Spartans communicated.

@LuYu weirdly, my mental image when I hear 'laconic' is of someone who doesn't say very much and lives in the countryside. I know it has nothing to do with rural living and suspect I'm getting it mixed up with bucolic.

A zero sum game is where each participants gain or loss is exactly balanced, so it's equal

Laconic covers a whole range of meanings from concise, succinct, brief, to the point, all the way to terse, abrupt and brusque. Which of these applies depends on the context.

I always think hubris should mean lazy for some reason not vain/full of pride etc.

I agree with pp about chartreuse should be an entirely different colour too.

The "Google Dictionary (by Google)" is a brilliant Chrome extension that I use all the time and strongly recommend. You double click a word and get a little pop-up to explain it, like the attached pic.

Search in the Chrome webstore for it / link: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-dictionary-by-goog/mgijmajocgfcbeboacabfgobmjgjcoja

BartonHollow A zero sum game is where each participants gain or loss is exactly balanced, so it's equal

Thanks Barton! It sounds like a fancy way of saying something simple, which would explain why it was always the most up-herself woman I knew who used to say it.

In "Dracula" Bram Stoker gives us a flattering portrait of a brave and honourable American, Quincey Morris, surely to please his US readers. He has few speeches, but those which he utters are frequently described as laconic. Striker could not have intended anything negative by this, in fact the opposite, showing that Morris has a cool head and trusts Van Helsing in his macabre activities to kill a vampire.

Pithy.

It sounds like you've said something fluffy and meaningless, not 'terse and full of meaning or substance'.

Chartreuse I had always thought was pinky burgundy. Glad to see it's not just me!
mandelaeffect.com/chartreuse-red-or-green/

Love this thread.

Desultory sounds as if it means desolate & bleak, but it means going from one thing to another aimlessly.

Also disinterested is not actually the opposite of interested it means without a vested interested in something so neutral( I realise almost everyone on the planet uses the other meaning so I need to stop caring but still).

And nonplussed I always think it means a bit offended, nose out of joint.

I love laconic as a word. It just feels nice to say. I think the reason it gets confused is probably because of similarities to both lascivious and languid.

I also get confused with flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing. I also don’t understand how to say that something isn’t flammable without saying uninflammable (and I don’t know if that’s even a word 😂)

I think the point of spendthrift is that it’s someone who believes they’re saving money by spending it- ie those people who go to the shop every day because they don’t see the small amounts as adding up to more than or the same as what the cost of one big shop a week would be. I’m definitely guilty of this!!

I remain convinced that spendthrift means the opposite of what it actually means.

Agree with this! It's because of the "thrift" part. Thrifty means using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.

So Spend+thrift should mean careful spending!

Pinguid always makes me think of the dancing penguin waiters in Mary Poppins - so I want it to mean cute rather than fat and oily

HalfBloodPrincess I think the same about disgruntled. No one is ever described as gruntled, are they?

Peruse is mine - I always think it should mean just glancing over something, when really it means to study something really closely.

Snoutandab0ut
Seminal can have nothing to do with semen!

Peruse is my pet hate. It infuriates me when people use it. Completely irrational but it just sound so showy

Overwhelmed and underwhelmed. I always find myself thinking that no one is just “whelmed” these days.

I also agree that chartreuse is the wrong colour for itself! Definitely should be a shade of burgundy.

Way back up thread, someone mentioned 'puce'. As I'm sure everyone knows, 'puce' is the French for 'flea'. The colour (dark red) was named for the blood sucked by fleas.... It was a very fashionable colour in the early 19th cent. I think I'm remembering correctly that in 'Northanger Abbey', Jane Austen describes a gown of 'puce sarsnet'.

Seminal derives from the Latin word for 'seed' . So does 'semen'. The underlying concept is the same. A seminal idea (for eg) is one that generates new and further ideas.

I think the same about disgruntled. No one is ever described as gruntled, are they?

We describe our dog as 'gruntled' when he's in the particularly blissful state of first cuddle of the morning, making those contented doggy noises. Gruntling. (Otoh if he's making discontented noises, that's 'grumpling').

'Incumbent' is another one. I think it's because it sounds like 'incoming', but in fact refers to the person already in the position.

I can see that all the PPs talking about Chartreuse never sampled the contents of their parents’ drinks cupboards (where there was usually a bottle lurking at the back along with the Ouzo) when they were teenagers — it’s the most awful sickly green colour with a taste to match.

Brackish. I always imagined it to mean that brown coloured water you get in still ponds with dead leaves in.

Glided as is 'as we glided to a halt' it just looks wrong. It's OK in speech but in text I find it really jarring, I don't know what my subconscious thinks it should be? Glid?! Fuck knows...

Oh, and slightly off topic, words that I know, but pronounce wrongly in my head:
Hyperbole: Hyper-bole (as in tree bole)
Paradigm: Para-dig(e)-(i)m
Pseudo: Sway-doh

All from reading the words long before I ever heard them spoken.

I made a complete fool of myself at about 14 when I said someone was 'guest-ure-ing wildly'

Wee, the dead leaves you imagine floating in the brown water might be bracken.