Misused Terms You're Sick of Seeing

jdogtwodolla

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Feb 12, 2009
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Contemporary: of the time

It means the opposite of old.

That's the big one right there.
 

Broderick

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Relish in Chaos said:
Strawman. Partly because I don't really know what it means; partly because the only times I hear it being used on a regular basis is on the internet.
I suppose this site would be a good place to look at Logical fallacies in general.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Basically it is misrepresenting or misunderstanding someone's argument to the point where you are not even debating about the actual point the person made. When people strawman arguements on purpose, it usually is to make the opponent's argument easier to attack, even if they did not actually debate their point.

Not a term, but the phrase "blood is thicker than water" now means the opposite of what the full phrase meant. The original phrase was "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Basically was referencing how soldiers in battle share stronger bonds than those you are blood related to. It could also stand for those friends who used to do blood mixing promises.

The term Irony comes to mind as well. When most people use irony, they are mostly talking about Situational Irony, which is only one of three types. However, I see the term used just as a word to describe an "unfortunate situation". Just because someone won the lottery and died the next day does not mean it is Ironic, that is unless everyone expected that person to live, in which case it is.
 

FirstNameLastName

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ThreeName said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
For the cis-gendered part. You know what? I'm transgender, want me to call you normal? Fine then you can call me normal too.
Luckily mine was within only a few post; people who don't use "normal" correctly.

Normal is a distributive pattern; it can basically be analogised to the "majority". Being trans is not normal for the simple virtue of being a minority of people.

If I've offended you or others, I would like to qualify this by adding that I also can't stand when people add a value judgement to "normal" either. Normal doesn't mean good and abnormal doesn't mean bad. They're just descriptives of statistics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, trans or other gender/sexuality combinations, but they are still not normal. There is nothing inherently good about being normal; being normal or abnormal should not dictate the treatment of an individual in any situation irrelevant to what makes one normal or abnormal (see 98% of all interactions ever).
That's all well and good, and I agree with most of what you said, but I disagree with the idea that people have no reason to take offence to being called abnormal. Whether or not there should be a value judgement assigned to these words, the fact of the mater is that there is a heavy value judgement assigned to both normal and abnormal.
 

ThreeName

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FirstNameLastName said:
That's all well and good, and I agree with most of what you said, but I disagree with the idea that people have no reason to take offence to being called abnormal. Whether or not there should be a value judgement assigned to these words, the fact of the mater is that there is a heavy value judgement assigned to both normal and abnormal.
That's sort of what I was trying to get across with the second part; if someone insults you with the intention of insulting you, then you can certainly be validly offended. I would argue that there can be a value judgement made on the part of the speaker, and it really should be contextually clear whether there is or not. If it truly is ambiguous, maybe try not to take offense to it (until there's evidence that the other person is actually a bigot, then you can kick them in the shins or whatever).

I know plenty of people who use normal/abnormal/etc correctly and factually. I struggle with the "trans/gay/etc is normal" argument because it both a) uses the word incorrectly and b) actually reinforces the idea that normal is a value judgement.

captcha: "Basket case". How insensitive, captcha.
 

Wasted

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I hate the misuse of mental health issues. Things like, OCD, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, etc.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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EDIT: Changed the quote to the person who I'm not agreeing with

loa said:
___phobic
Newsflash, "phobia" means "fear of" which is not in fact equal to "hatred for" and no, the term sounding super catchy doesn't change that. I am an arachnophobe, I freeze up if I see a big spider crawling out of my bedsheets. That doesn't mean I hate spiders, I actually find them interesting to look at... from afar.
Do you apply the same etyomological rigor to words like "awful"? Awful is derived from "awe" and "full" which originally meant "full of awe". It would originally be used to refer to magnificent, frightful or overwhelming sights. And based on the etymology that's what it should refer to. But dictionary.com defines it as "Bad or unpleasant", which is the way that it is now almost unanimously used.

Homophobia, and transphobia have their own definitions that aren't direct translations of the root terms. Just like 90% of the words that we use today. If you looked up the actual terms you'd see that they mean a lot more than just fear of gay or trans people.

You might have a problem with the use of the phobia suffix, but it isn't wrong to use those terms to cover more than straight up fear.

OT:

Objectively

Especially "Objective fact" or "Objectively true". Objectively has a very specific meaning, especially when used in the logical sense. Objective fact is something that can't possibly be untrue based on any interpretation, something that can almost never come into play in discussions about social issues.
 

FirstNameLastName

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
FirstNameLastName said:
Ah, I forgot this one, but thank you for reminding me. "Phobic" is a suffix that seems to baffle some people, for some reason. When ever people are labling something a homophobic or transphobic, there's at least one person who stands up and declares that they aren't afraid of gays, they just dislike them; completely disregarding the actual meaning of the word. "Phobic" simply means an intense aversion to, which can mean a fear and/<color=red>or dislike of something.
Do you apply the same etyomological rigor to words like "awful"? Awful is derived from "awe" and "full" which originally meant "full of awe". It would originally be used to refer to magnificent, frightful or overwhelming sights. And based on the etymology that's what it should refer to. But dictionary.com defines it as "Bad or unpleasant", which is the way that it is now almost unanimously used.

Homophobia, and transphobia have their own definitions that aren't direct translations of the root terms. Just like 90% of the words that we use today. If you looked up the actual terms you'd see that they mean a lot more than just fear of gay or trans people.

You might have a problem with the use of the phobia suffix, but it isn't wrong to use those terms to cover more than straight up fear.
I was arguing against the idea of the -phobia suffix exclusively denoting fear. In other words, we are in agreement here. Although, upon rereading it I can sort of see how it might seem otherwise, so I've put the important distinction in bold.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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FirstNameLastName said:
I was arguing against the idea of the -phobia suffix exclusively denoting fear. In other words, we are in agreement here. Although, upon rereading it I can sort of see how it might seem otherwise, so I've put the important distinction in bold.
Actually that's completely on me. Rereading it I meant to be quoting the person you quoted, not you yourself.
 

Ravenbom

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"Infamous"
This really bugs the shit out of me. Infamous means evil. Hitler gained infamy by genocide. Your game shouldn't be called Infamous if you're allowed moral choice between a good and evil path.

"Irony"
It's when the literal and actual meanings are different and/or opposite. Like rolling your eyes and saying "Oh goodie..." The action in that example is sarcasm and the words are ironic.

"Racist"
If you said an Asian dude is great at math, that's not racist because that is not a pejorative statement. It is racial. There's a difference. Saying white people can't dance is however, racist because it is a pejorative racial statement/stereotype.

"Lie of omission"
Technically, lying is an action and omission is inaction. Omit functions as a verb in English because it's Latin base means "to let go". In usage it creates an oxymoron like saying "you made a choice by not making a choice" or "you acted by not acting".
But oxymoron and slightly bad grammar aside, it bugs the shit out of me because it's just a way for people to get in the last word when they where left out of the loop.
If I fart in a crowded elevator and tell no one in the elevator it was me, it doesn't make me a liar. Flatulent maybe, but not a liar.
 

EvilRoy

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I hate the use of the word "Hypocrisy" on the internet with a blinding fury, because the people who use it do so with a misunderstanding of the term so great that it approaches pure irony.

Hypocrisy is not a synonym for inconsistency. Inconsistency is the action of holding beliefs that either oppose or do not readily align. Hypocrisy, at its most simplistic state, is the claim of holding a set of beliefs or values that you do not actually hold. A hypocrite may act inconsistently, and this may out their hypocrisy, but the simple act of being inconsistent does not automatically mean a person is a hypocrite. To take it further, one can remain completely self-consistent while being totally hypocritical, and/or could be totally inconsistent in very visual and extreme ways and not be hypocritical. Simply put: inconsistency has a ten word definition, while hypocrisy has a 1 500 word wikipedia entry having 23 scholarly references.

Moreover, outing someone as a hypocrite accomplishes nothing. You aren't proving shit when you accuse someone of hypocrisy, because you are attempting to discredit the person rather than address the argument they are making. You may as well be pointing at them and calling them a goat fucker for all the good it does to counter their arguments.

tl;dr:
If you accuse someone of hypocrisy on the internet, you have basically just proven that you don't actually understand what hypocrisy is.
 

lordmardok

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Sociopath DOES NOT EQUAL Psychopath

I actually am a sociopath, high functioning (no, that doesn't mean Sherlock you dunce, that's high functioning Asperger's) but I am. A sociopath is someone for whom emotional connection and the formation of relationships (platonic, romantic, intimate, etc) is exceptionally difficult. Someone like me does not have the emotional capacity to invest in relationships to the degree regular people do and so we're seen as cold, or unfriendly, or unkind. A real sociopath is not someone who has a hard time making friends, sometimes people are just bad at socializing, a sociopath is someone for whom the word 'Friendship' holds almost no inherent meaning. Same for romance. It's not that we're bad at socializing even, (most sociopaths are actually quite good having learned to fake it since a young age) but the thing is this: when people talk about how great it is to have friends or a lover who understands you and all that jazz? Yeah, we have no clue what you're talking about. It's like explaining to a shark that you hurt your knee, it does not compute. All that emotional joy normal folks feel in a relationship just doesn't translate into the brain of a sociopath.

A PSYCHOPATH on the other hand is literally (and I mean that in the correct way) on the other end of the emotional spectrum. These are people who form relationships too fast and are unhealthy about it. They're the co-dependents and the schizophrenics, they're the people who are manipulative and need constant emotional ego-fluffing from people they know. They DEPEND on their social environment and social connections to survive because they lack the capability to survive on their own terms.

To clarify: having psychopathic traits like the above does not mean you are inherently going to go on a murder spree. Having PSYCHOPATHIC traits is different from being a PSYCOPATH which itself is different from having a PSYCHOTIC BREAK. A schizophrenic is a psychopath, but plenty of people who suffer from schizophrenia just live with it and medicate and are otherwise normal.

tl;dr sociopaths and psychopaths aren't just not the same thing they are in fact diametrically opposed to each other so stop using the terms interchangeably.
 

Loonyyy

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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
So "Heteronormativity" is basically another word for homophobia? At or at least in practice?

I think you might have a point here. I'm still not gonna use that pre-fix for it though.
It's not so much homophobia, in that it's not usually directed hatred.

It's more that people are to some extent, expected to be straight. So people think that gay people just need to find the right person of the opposite sex, or ask cringe-worthy questions about who the "Man" and "Woman" are in homosexual pairings. Or even the way in which people react to seeing homosexual characters or relations in media. Or the way in which many cultural milestones are related to heterosexual activities, some of which are outright illegal for gay people.

The term really is more of an academic one. You don't usually address someone with it.
 

elvor0

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Steve Waltz said:
GabeZhul said:
Steve Waltz said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
You know what? I'm transgender, want me to call you normal?
WHAT THE HELL?! I called you trans once (assuming that you were) and be blew a freaking gasket saying that I was insulting you! Now you?re saying that you are? What happened? Did you decide to get a sex change in the past few weeks?

OH WOW! Look at that! I went back to go and find the evidence and you edited the post: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.874831-Ace-Ventura-was-transphobic-Really?page=5#21986995
Errr... You are aware that the problem in the post you linked was the "transvestite" part, right? It's not the same thing as "transgender".
Transvestite literally means "cross-dresser". It has nothing to do with gender-identity.
No, I wasn?t. So a transvestite is a person that just puts on the clothes, and a transgender person is someone that gets an operation?
Transvestite is the clothes. It has no bearing or indication on a persons sexuality or gender identity or anything else. The only thing you can assume from this is that they like the clothes. The go to example is (or was) the comedian Eddie Izzard.

Transgender is a person who feels they are a different gender to that of thier natural biological sex, they can either have had the operation or not.

Transexual is someone who has had the operation.

All Transexuals are Transgendered people, but not all Transgendered people are Transexuals. I'd also say it was pretty safe to say most Transvestites are neither, at least in my experience.

thaluikhain said:
Oh, bit of an odd one, but when people say "alternate dimension", when they mean "alternative reality" of something.

Alternative and alternate and different words, and dimension...well, I can imagine (ish) a length and width square talking about a length and depth one, this is not usually the sort of thing that people mean.
Actually, alternate is in itself an alternative version of the word alternative. Meaning both Alternative and to alternate, depending on context.

Dimension is used broadly, in the sense that our entire universe is the dimensions that we live in, and someone from outside that was from an alternative(or alternate) dimension.
 

DoPo

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Ravenbom said:
"Infamous"
This really bugs the shit out of me. Infamous means evil. Hitler gained infamy by genocide. Your game shouldn't be called Infamous if you're allowed moral choice between a good and evil path.
Actually it doesn't mean "evil" - it means somebody being famous but for something bad. For example, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is infamous but not because it was evil - it was just broken and considered one of the worst games ever.

Ravenbom said:
"Lie of omission"
Technically, lying is an action and omission is inaction. Omit functions as a verb in English because it's Latin base means "to let go". In usage it creates an oxymoron like saying "you made a choice by not making a choice" or "you acted by not acting".
But oxymoron and slightly bad grammar aside, it bugs the shit out of me because it's just a way for people to get in the last word when they where left out of the loop.
If I fart in a crowded elevator and tell no one in the elevator it was me, it doesn't make me a liar. Flatulent maybe, but not a liar.
Your example is not of lie of omission. This term has a very specific meaning - it's when somebody lies by excluding very relevant details from the information they share. Not communicating is not a lie of omission. But intentionally withholding key details from others is used for deception. It's not an oxymoron, as you are still acting or making choices, only such that would deceive the others.
 

Parasondox

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GarouxBloodline said:
It frustrates me that people expect for blacks to be referred to as "...African Americans..." - even if they were not born in, and/or do not have citizenship in Africa. Guess what? I am white, and if I was born in Africa and then gained citizenship in America, I would be "...African American..." too. It is simply asinine, and what cracks me up, is that it is typically white people that insist on the use of that terminology.

Cannot tell you how many times I have had a teacher/boss pull me aside, for referring to my black friends as "...Black..." xD
It's even more strange when you get shouted out for calling yourself black. I AM BLACK. When I started on this site I remember someone having a go at me for not saying "African-American", instead of "Black" because that B word is offensive and racist. Seriously, it happened. I'm not African nor american, I'm Black!!

Honestly, it's just who you talk to. Some even say "Sup my niggaaaaaaaa" as a friendship thing. Some are just too sensitive and you just have to adapt to that person. Even saying "coloured" will get you chased. It's a lose, lose situation a lot of the time.
 

TwiZtah

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San Martin said:
People saying 'SJW' and 'feminazi'. There is no situation in which you should say those words. Stop.
Why is that, the Tumblr Valerie Solanas level of dumbfuck feminists are seriously mentally ill or completely retarded and they call themselves SJWs and the term Feminazi is probably good to call them as it draws attention away from the moderate feminists.
 

MCerberus

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lordmardok said:
Sociopath DOES NOT EQUAL Psychopath
This. I'm a 'tendencies' person, and I've found that it's best to not let anyone know about it. This feeds into an existential phobia about losing control.

My pet peeve is "Same difference". It's not an acknowledgement of a single difference. It's a part of an analogy.
 

Twintix

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Parasondox said:
Seriously, it happened. I'm not African nor american, I'm Black!!
This, I feel, is often a sign of political correctness gone mad. Wasn't there an American reporter during the Olympics one year who kept calling a black athlete "African-American" even though he was British? I think I read about that somewhere...

Seriously. People might consider "black" racist, (Like, "The N-word"; I can understand why people consider it inappropriate due to negative connotations and all that. But the term "black" being racist, I understand a bit less) but "African-American" is just incorrect in some cases.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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lordmardok said:
Sociopath DOES NOT EQUAL Psychopath

I actually am a sociopath, high functioning (no, that doesn't mean Sherlock you dunce, that's high functioning Asperger's) but I am. A sociopath is someone for whom emotional connection and the formation of relationships (platonic, romantic, intimate, etc) is exceptionally difficult. Someone like me does not have the emotional capacity to invest in relationships to the degree regular people do and so we're seen as cold, or unfriendly, or unkind. A real sociopath is not someone who has a hard time making friends, sometimes people are just bad at socializing, a sociopath is someone for whom the word 'Friendship' holds almost no inherent meaning. Same for romance. It's not that we're bad at socializing even, (most sociopaths are actually quite good having learned to fake it since a young age) but the thing is this: when people talk about how great it is to have friends or a lover who understands you and all that jazz? Yeah, we have no clue what you're talking about. It's like explaining to a shark that you hurt your knee, it does not compute. All that emotional joy normal folks feel in a relationship just doesn't translate into the brain of a sociopath.

A PSYCHOPATH on the other hand is literally (and I mean that in the correct way) on the other end of the emotional spectrum. These are people who form relationships too fast and are unhealthy about it. They're the co-dependents and the schizophrenics, they're the people who are manipulative and need constant emotional ego-fluffing from people they know. They DEPEND on their social environment and social connections to survive because they lack the capability to survive on their own terms.

To clarify: having psychopathic traits like the above does not mean you are inherently going to go on a murder spree. Having PSYCHOPATHIC traits is different from being a PSYCOPATH which itself is different from having a PSYCHOTIC BREAK. A schizophrenic is a psychopath, but plenty of people who suffer from schizophrenia just live with it and medicate and are otherwise normal.

tl;dr sociopaths and psychopaths aren't just not the same thing they are in fact diametrically opposed to each other so stop using the terms interchangeably.
This might better explain these differences, as some of what you stated isn't exactly correct:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/02/12/differences-between-a-psychopath-vs-sociopath/

ALSO schizophrenics =\= psychopath. Schizophrenics can have deep emotional bonds and feel guilt. Psychopaths do not.

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/schizophrenia/schizophrenia-signs-types-and-causes.htm
Sociopaths are impulsive, Psychopaths are calculating. Both Sociopaths and Schizophrenics can be capable of deep emotional bonds with other people( while it may be difficult to do so), Psychopaths are not believed to be capable of such bonds. Psychopaths are not necessarily codependents, instead they often just " use" people instead, but do not necessarily always do so, nor do they always have a need or desire to do so.