Hey...that didn't mean what I thought it meant.

Noisom memories

Being deaf with a sensitive nose, I know "noisome" means unwholesome and malodorous, but I've tried to be clear about its meaning due to the confusion it often causes.

I've only been totally deaf about ten years but was probably hard-of-hearing long before the condition was diagnosed. My big embarassment was hearing "penchant" in high school and thinking it was pronounced (and spelled) "perchance."

After years of misuse, I was finally called on it in by a college English professor.

Pertinent to the thread topic:

http://beebo.org/smackerels/how-i-met-my-wife.html

caw

IceCreamEmpress said:

I hate when people think that "nonplussed" means "unfazed".

Click to expand...

I hate it when people use "unfazed". It has to be one of the lamest, weakest, least meaningful adjectives in the language, with a thousand better replacements.

Even worse is the use of "unphased", which I have seen.

caw

For a long time I thought one's peers meant one's betters -not one's equals.

This is really embarrasing.

I remember doing those 'read out loud' lists at school. I think I was about 7ys old. It came to the word 'urge'. I had no idea what it meant or how it sounded, so the teacher did the usuall thing of telling me to 'break it down'. I did and, thinking I'd got the word, I repeated it several times outloud.

the 'u' and the 'r' made an 'or' sound and the 'gee' sound came naturally after it. Simple, two-syllables: or-ge

The teacher, unable to hide her laughing behind her hand, she left and brought the headteacher in to hear me say it. Of the course the real problems started when I asked them what an 'orgy' was.

Well, I was sort of right back then. Urge - orgy... doesn't one lead to the other?

I used to think fortnight meant four days. But I recently googled the word and apparently it means fourteen days (they must have changed it/). It's such a weird word to me.

I'm annoyed by people who use disinterested when they mean uninterested. It seems to be happening a lot recently.

This is from my Oxford English Dictionary (English being more relevant to older words, seeing as the ancient English invented the language some centuries before the first anglo-american settlers bastardised it):

san*guine

–adjective
1. cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.
2. reddish; ruddy: a sanguine complexion.
3. (in old physiology) having blood as the predominating humor and consequently being ruddy-faced, cheerful, etc.
4. bloody; sanguinary.
5. blood-red; red.
6. Heraldry. a reddish-purple tincture.
–noun
7. a red iron-oxide crayon used in making drawings.

-Modern usage
1.
a. Of the color of blood; red.
b. Of a healthy reddish color; ruddy
-archaic
2. Archaic
a. Having blood as the dominant humor in terms of medieval physiology.
b. Having the temperament and ruddy complexion formerly thought to be characteristic of a person dominated by this humor; passionate.
-consolidate
3. Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

Related forms:
san⋅guine⋅ly, adverb
san⋅guin⋅i⋅ty, san⋅guin⋅ness, noun

Synonyms:
1. enthusiastic, buoyant, animated, lively, spirited.

Antonyms:
1. morose.

Anyway, interms of the blood/sanguine bit, it breaks down like this:
Sanguine is of the colour of blood, or relative to blood.
Bloody - is sanguinary.
Bloodthirsty - would be to diplay or have sanguinity or be sanguineous.

Sanguine is even in its most archaic form still meaning cheerful - sanguinary bloodthirsty. Yes, sang means blood in french and sanguis is latin for blood. However, the medieval mind broke down the visible temperament by color relating to bodily fluids (bile, phlegm, blood,black bile) - and the color then determined the predominant aspects to which a person behaved. If blood was the overall colour (sang) than a person was generally cheerful and happy. If this is not the archaic understanding you imagine having anything remotely linked to modern usage - think about 'his mood is black' or 'tickled pink' (pink is a lighter red). Further to this it can also refer to the flushed or blushing complexion when 'blood' was considered to fill the skin. You are wrong to think it means otherwise, so is your dictionary - but that's what this thread is all about.

blacbird said:

I hate it when people use "unfazed". It has to be one of the lamest, weakest, least meaningful adjectives in the language, with a thousand better replacements.

Even worse is the use of "unphased", which I have seen.

caw

Click to expand...

"Unphased" is good. It applies to the uncomfortable condition that occurs when you pass between dimensions without the mandatory rephasing therapy. Don't try this at home.

As for the sanguine/sanguinary debate, when I want to say bloody, I say bloody. Some characters might say sanguine (cheerful). Depends on their level of erudition.

For years, I thought "laconic" meant something like "stoic and dour", because the only book I'd seen it used in attached it to a character who was, indeed, stoic and dour, and applied it repeatedly to that character as a handy tag for keeping him straight in a large cast.

Then in a high school vocab list, I find out it means "uses few words when speaking". So much for figuring out words from context! It's still one of my favorite words, though. I love its precision and utility.

LOL, Fallen!

When I was about that age, I thought that orgy was short for organism. It didn't help that my older sister encouraged that bit of misinformation.

IceCreamEmpress said:

I hate when people think that "nonplussed" means "unfazed".

Click to expand...

Argh! I just ran into that recently in a book. A published book. Ouch.

Priene said:

I'm annoyed by people who use disinterested when they mean uninterested. It seems to be happening a lot recently.

Click to expand...

I've almost given up on this one. And "disinterested" is such a useful word to mean "impartial by reason of having no expectation of good from either outcome." There really is no single word to replace it.

bonitakale said:

I've almost given up on this one. And "disinterested" is such a useful word to mean "impartial by reason of having no expectation of good from either outcome." There really is no single word to replace it.

Click to expand...

Would it not have been easier and more precise to have said : 'to not care by way of having no invested interest'?

It makes apparent the reason for the '-interested' part of the word.

You can be disinterested about more than just the outcome of an event or situation applying to others and/or yourself. You can in fact even be disinterested in a person's account of things that have or will happen, the world news even...to show disinterest is always puzzling though when I see it written, because you can't really show disinterest through bodily or facial expression - it's more an action by way of deed or spoken word - isn't it? The only human bodily expression I can see that would sum up how you might show disinterest would be to shrug off or sigh or roll your eyes, or just ignore, but then again, that would imply that you're more uninterested.......

Hmmm.

invested interest: common mistake for vested interest

Matera the Mad said:

invested interest: common mistake for vested interest

Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out. I've been saying it wrong for years

I get annoyed when someone tries to explain that I've been using a word wrong, but doesn't understand the subject themselves.

I've had people twice tell me that a 'quantum leap' actually means 'a very small leap' so a quantum leap in technology is really tiny.

They are wrong. Sure, in atomic physics a quantum leap is small ... but everything in atomic physics is small! That's a consequence of being on the scale of atoms. The interesting thing about a quantum leap is that it skips the intermediate steps - so instead of going 'A-B-C-D-E' it simply goes 'A -> E' .. leaping the gap in the middle.

So a quantum leap in technology is a leap that skips over intermediate steps. (Or leaps over events that people would expect to be needed)

Yet if you google [quantum leap misused ] you'll find heaps of would-be pedants who couldn't
wave couple their way out of a paper bag ... yet they are all utterly convinced that they understand the origin of the phrase !

Mac

Chase said:

Being deaf with a sensitive nose, I know "noisome" means unwholesome and malodorous

Click to expand...

There are a few colloquial terms for being smelly that reference sounds, such as 'it hums' for it smells, and 'it honks' for it stinks. So it could smell so awful that you can hear it. Or it could be synaesthesia.

I used to hear 'as opposed to' (as in, smells are noisome, as opposed to sounds, which aren't) as 'as a pose to'.

kuwisdelu said:

I'll use "cheerful."

Which is not to say I'd have any time to use.

My characters are never sanguine.

Click to expand...

Then you shan't need "sanguine" at all, and you can put it back. But keep a good supply of "sanguinary".

Anaquana said:

LOL, Fallen!

When I was about that age, I thought that orgy was short for organism. It didn't help that my older sister encouraged that bit of misinformation.

Click to expand...

LOL.

kborsden said:

Would it not have been easier and more precise to have said : 'to not care by way of having no invested interest'?

It makes apparent the reason for the '-interested' part of the word.

You can be disinterested about more than just the outcome of an event or situation applying to others and/or yourself. You can in fact even be disinterested in a person's account of things that have or will happen, the world news even...to show disinterest is always puzzling though when I see it written, because you can't really show disinterest through bodily or facial expression - it's more an action by way of deed or spoken word - isn't it?

Click to expand...

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. A judge, for instance, may care very much about the case before him. But he's still supposed to be disinterested, because, as you say, he has no vested interest.

You can in fact even be disinterested in a person's account of things that have or will happen, the world news even..


But to me, those seem like lack of interest -- I'm uninterested in football, or the news, or whatever, not disinterested. A bet might give me an interest in a football game, so I wouldn't be disinterested anymore -- but I still would be uninterested, and would get someone to tell me the results so I didn't have to watch.

Samantha's_Song said:

Sang is the French word for blood.

Click to expand...

Well sanguine is a French word too, just the adjective.
Ex. J'ai dû recevoir une transfusion sanguine pour ma opération.
I had to get a blood transfusion for my operation.

Priene said:

I'm annoyed by people who use disinterested when they mean uninterested. It seems to be happening a lot recently.

Click to expand...

Of course, if everyone's been doing it, why stop it? The language is just going along its merry way in evolving.