Words you can't use any more

[CoalTit]

I know language evolves and all that. I accepted that "nonplussed" is now an unusable word because so many people take it to mean its opposite. I didn't really have much occasion to use it anyway. But now it turns out that "lame" and "literally' have suffered the same fate.

I've hurt my foot. I tried to explain to a friend on WhatsApp that I won't be going dancing this week, by writing: "I'm literally, technically lame". I got a long voice message in return expressing sympathy for my lack of confidence, saying how intimidating the dance scene can be.
So I tried, "No, lame, like a horse" and that seemed to work.
Then I messaged my upstairs neighbour to say I can't help her with her work in the light well today because I'm lame. I hurt my foot helping her so I thought she'd understand.
She replied asking me to get up the ladder so she can pass things down to me. I tried " I can't help you today; I can barely walk", and she seemed to understand.

I thought I could use "lame" to save myself typing out "I hurt my foot; it's badly swollen and I can barely walk". I thought I could use "literally" to make it clear, but no.

Lame is used used in the Bible, in hymns and fairy tales .

They're not actually meatballs, they are so much better, but at least 3 people have posted links to Mr Brain's Faggots. I used to get them from the butcher a long time ago. Delicious.

Yes.

Kilburn.

"I have woke up" is incorrect, I'm afraid.

I don't think this is the board for you since your grammar shows me that you are not a pedant, at least not an English language pedant. 😅

Phew

I’m very old-and I remember when gay became
common parlance. I can’t remember a time-until recently- when queer was not a slur. Obviously it also meant strange, peculiar. But that was why it was a slur. And frankly, you have to be about 147 years old to try the “but gay means happy!” line!

I didn’t say “I have woke up”

Yes so “decimate” has meant “destroy” for 100s of years and the author of the article thinks that this is a reasonable evolution of the language.

I can’t personally think of any situations where I might regularly want to talk about 10% reduction….. but perhaps that is just my issue?

I think there is an interesting parallel between fraction and decimate. I think fraction has meant small proportion for many many years.

You said I've just woke up, the addition of just didn't make it gramatically correct

Or are you being pedantic about I have versus I've?

Yes, so we can no longer use the word with its original meaning, which was the subject of the thread.

We can halve, quarter, or quint something, and maybe there are other words for taking a proportion of something, but yes I would like to be able to use a verb to indicate a tenth! I'll also continue to say 'a small fraction' rather than just 'a fraction' because in my head a fraction could be the whole or more than.

Another little-known word I would never, ever use these days is ‘niggardly’ - even though it is NOTHING etymologically to do with the N word. I feel hot and sick just imagining being misheard 🙈

I just woke up…. There, I corrected it. Hope that puts you at ease now!

Faggots? They had them on a menu of a restaurant we went to recently so the word can be both written and said in polite company.

It’s quite a Lancastrian way to say it - just woke up. My parents would have said it. It doesn’t sound right though.

Or from Yorkshire “I aren’t doing that”.

Indeed. Beggars were always lame I think, often with a grubby bandaged foot.

Do they? Really? I’ve never come across it being used like that. No-one I know would ever use it other than to mean perplexed.

Because that’s what it means.

Why are the pedants all turning on each other, by the way, even to the extent of questioning pedant credentials? 😉

Not quite. I have a friend named Gay. And that’s what she was called until the mid90s, when we lost touch. We reconnected a few years ago, and she is now Fay. She said that she was made to feel so uncomfortable about her name that she added a similar-sounding name once her parents had passed away. She kept Gay as a middle name. She is in her 60s.

I've just searched and apart from pedants discussing its misuse, much of usage in the wilds of MN is incorrect.

I advance searched "ambivalent" as well and nobody is using it correctly.

That’s a real shame. So she’s now Fay Gay?
It might have been better to add a couple of letters - Gayle or Gaynor, maybe?

I think Americans use it to mean indifferent, not bothered, while it originally meant confused, as you rightly said. So not opposites exactly but very different.
So of OP said I can’t go dancing because I’m lame an American might say oh ok I’m non plussed meaning it’s ok I don’t mind.

Have we done I could care less yet. Infuriating the American way round.