Could everyone please just stop using the word 'ignorant'?

[SilentBoob]

I don't think you're using it correctly and I can't quite work out what you think it means.

I am finding the whole thing very troubling, and I think it would be best if you all stopped using it all together.

Thanks ever so.

Don't be so ignorant.

OP, I agree with you. I hear people saying things like "She was so ignorant for pushing in front of me in the queue" and I find myself wondering what they are actually trying to say. Ignorant of the queueing procedure? Or do they just mean that someone was rude?

Unfortunately using ignorant to mean "ignoring me in a rude manner" is apparently a legitimate regional usage. Personally I agree that they should stop doing it anyway, because I don't care how sodding legitimate it is: it's like a huge speed bump in the middle of a sentence, making me stop and think " " until I remember what it means.

Oh I am glad it's not just me. Yes, like a speed bump, it trips me up and I feel confused and uncomfortable.

I have seen it used to mean ignoring someone and once my buttocks had unclenched I assumed it was a gross misunderstanding and refused to dwell on it - but you say it's legitimate? Oh dear, really?

But yes, there is another (wrong) meaning, almost like 'rude' but not quite, and I can't fathom it.

It's common on the other side of the Atlantic. I think the understanding is that only the uneducated are rude.

Ignorant really means "unaware" in the sense of not seeing what's in front of you, but as language mutates and develops is rarely used to mean that anymore.

In the same way that "education" actually means "bringing up" and "discipline" really means "educate" (as we know it now, schools and books and stuff )

Unfortunately, much as we'd like to (and I am one who really would!) we can't stop language changing organically. That would be too ignorant

Language changing organically I can deal with (although I do think that verbing weirds language ) but I cannot work out precisely what this new meaning of ignorant is.

Sometimes it means to ignore someone - "I'm not usually an ignorant person but I did blank her in All Bar One that afternoon".

Other times it means... well, sort of rude? Or churlish? Or... well, I can't really work it out, hence the thread.

Ignorant as in being uncouth, ill-educated, unmannerly - i.e. without sufficient education in acceptable social mores perhaps?

Yes. That could be it.

I've seen "I asked him why he was being so ignorant" which confuses me because my understanding is that ignorant is not something you can choose to be or not, it is something you are as a result of lack of knowledge about something specific.