Jealousy and envy are not synonymous.

[Habbibu]

They really aren't. They're verging on being opposite, in fact. I suspect that they will become synonymous, actually, but while I can rant about it, I will.

Isn't "un-genteel loss of control" the same as PMSL?

Bink - then Trollope is ideal reading for botoxers.

I thought it was recently established that it should be PML not PMSL?

Habbibu - you are so right - particularly especially as the women doing the straight faces are all women Of A Certain Age with Reputations despite which they are trying to retain residual tatters of respectability. Botox ahoy!!

PML/PMSL
It all ends with a messy carpet.

Threadworm - I dislike PMSL intensely. I wince whenever I see it. We are engaged in a a hierarchy of prissiness.

I feel so frowned upon now that I feel quite constipated.

Threadworm will sort your constipation out.

Crusha, reminds me of the Goodies

"Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam..

... and I'll show you a house with a very messy carpet"

Crushgrape - I'd like to convey my appreciation of your most recent post on this thread. It made me laugh.

Ladies, I salute you all- I shall henceforth refrain from the P--L , even though I feel slightly uncomfortable in holding in my urges (ahem) after reading this thread. I might need to use the though, if that would be alright? I might even jealously guard my right to use it, while envying you all your superior powers of expression, now that I understand how to use those words too. Ooops..!

Where's this thread on incorrect use of reflexive pronouns then, Habbibu? You got myself all excited for a moment.

If I visualise "envy" then it someone gnawing on their lip while the object of their desire is in reach, "jealousy" can be personified by Heathcliff, all black and proud...

Jealous can mean envious. It's in the dictionary.

Not in my dictionary. Maybe on your internet "it means whatever you want it to mean" dictionaries...

(By which I mean, yes, envy may have passed into common usage as being synonymous with jealousy. But that still doesn't make it right.)

Do I need to use an emoticon now?

Iorek's "I didn't feel it would play well in that arena" is superbly loaded. Who needs emoticons or acronyms?

Reflexive pronoun thread on its way. Remember this? " Oh fuck." Got in the way of pedantry, it did.

And a-far-too-late check of the OED tells me that the "envy" meaning of jealousy has been around a lot longer than I'd thought - Chaucer and Caxton used it, to name but two. It's still not its primary meaning, but I suspect it may well come to push "envy" into obsolescence, which would be a shame. Bah humbug.

Habbibu, I will not eat it. My dictionary has:

Jealous, jel'us, adj. lit. zealous; suspicious of or incensed at rivalry; anxious to defend the honour of

Envy, en'vi, v.t., to look upon with a grudging eye; to hate on account of prosperity

And it is less than 150 years old.

I used the OED online, Iorek. It's pretty authoritative, more's the pity.

Et voila:
b. in respect of success or advantage: Apprehensive of losing some desired benefit through the rivalry of another; feeling ill-will towards another on account of some advantage or superiority which he possesses or may possess; grudging, envious. Const. of (the person, or the advantage).
c1385 CHAUCER L.G.W. Prol. 331 Ffor hate or for Ielous ymagynyng. c1477 CAXTON Jason 32 Alle were ialous of him. But Iason neuer thought on none of them. 1563 B. GOOGE Eglogs vii. (Arb.) 59 You iudge but of malicious hart, and of a Ialouse brayne. c1601 SIR C. HATTON in Hatton Corr. (Camden) 2 My many iealious observers prevent my presence. a1732 ATTERBURY Serm. Isa. xl. 22 (Seager) It is certain that they looked upon it with a jealous eye. 1838 THIRLWALL Greece xxiii. III. 289 Several of the leading persons in the state were jealous of his glory. 1897 Eng. Hist. Rev. Jan. 152 The Church was, as early as 1254, becoming jealous of the civil law.

But mine is from 1867 - that's before everything went wrong with the English language.

I have the Oxford concise in front of me:
Jealous, like many words, has several meanings, one of which is: "Feeling resentment or envy (of person, his advantages etc) on account of known or suspected rivalry esp in sexual love.

And the Collins:
Jealous 2 envious

Jealous can indeed be a synonym for envious. As it proved by common usage and literature!

Not according to the early moderns, Iorek. For them it went wrong in about 1550.