"Ignorant" does not mean "rudely ignoring someone"!

[DilysPrice]

It certainly used to mean "not knowing something you really ought to know". Didn't it?
I have only ever seen this new usage on MN, but I see it frequently here. What's going on?

And the curse of Pedants' Corner strikes again, as I missed out the "n" in "ignoring" in my title.

Pet hate of mine. Ignorant, as you rightly said, means not knowing something you really ought to know. It does not have anything to do with ignoring someone! GRRRR!

I only hear truly stupid people use it in that sense. It's kind of a shibboleth of mine.

Maybe people are using it in the "ignorant of basic manners" way?

Not at all sure though and find it really ignorant when people use it in this way

I think it's a regional peculiarity as well. I discovered it in use when I went up to Manchester.

I do get that it's a useful usage - there is no simple paraphrase for the behaviour described, but it's so radically different to the normal usage that it makes me do a double take.

it's regional dialect, common in lots of places.
I'd never heard it till I had a Scottish boyfriend when I was about 25....

I must have known lots of people from the kind of areas where it is used before that age, I suppose we just never discussed other people's manners. Whereas on MN people do all the time, which is why you keep hearing it.

Using 'ignorant' to mean 'rude' is standard in Ireland, or at least it was when I lived there. Perhaps that's where it comes from. There are other things like 'your man' and 'I'm after (having done something)' that I'm increasingly hearing in England that I'd only ever heard in Ireland before.

I'm pretty sure it comes from French ignorer, which does not mean ignore; "j'ignore" means "I don't (care to) know", subtly different from "je ne sais pas" (I don't happen to know).

It's definitely a northern thing

It's common in the US, I've found, and is used surprisingly pejoratively in a nation which elected George W Bush (the second time).

DP is northern and he uses "ignorant" to describe me when i am ignoring him, he also uses "pedantic" in the wrong context too, but that may be because he is ignorant!

I'm from Yorkshire and grew up with both meanings - saying 'she's so ignorant' means someone is extremely rude and should know better (in terms of manners).

From Ireland here and we have both meanings in usage.

My mother will also describe a type of mug, for example, as "an ignorant mug" by which she means a crudely made, not very posh mug that wouldn't be fit for visitors.

Ah ha! I had wondered about this as I see it often. I thought people were confusing ignorant and arrogant from the context, but this makes more sense.