Misused words

[Vault101]

"I could care less"

COULND'T! YOU COULDN'T CARE LESS!!!!! THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR SAYING!

 

[Eddy-16]

Dose and Does is one that annoys me. I see it mixed up far too often.

 

[Magikarp]

"over-expectant and spoiled"

Exactly, the idea is that they THINK they are entitled. It's just easier to call them 'entitled' than to call them 'people who think they're entitled'.

 

[Longstreet]

Discrimination and racism.
And no, not misused but OVER used.For every little thing someone doesn't like they pull those words out there ass as a counter.

 

[Thaluikhain]

OT: Cisgender. It means "a person whose physical and mental sex are the same". It's meant to be the opposite of transgender, "trans-" meaning 'on the opposite side', referring to the opposing physical and mental sex of a transgender, "cis-" meaning 'on the same side', referring to the matching mental and physical sex of a cisgender.

Many people use it to refer to heterosexual, non-trans people. A homosexual who is both mentally and physically a man/woman would be considered cisgender.

Really? I've never seen it used that way.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

for such a simple word it's meaning is just so hard to pin down

It's really very simple when you think of it in general terms: you say or do one thing but mean or cause the opposite. Yes, it melds with sarcasm a bit and there's stuff like dramatic irony that throws it off, but that general definition will get everyone through irony for the most part. The hard part is telling 14 year olds that.

OT: Edgy. I've done a lot of browsing /v/ lately and it's become apparent that a lot of people have no idea where is does and doesn't apply.

 

[BlackBark]

I suppose there are the very obvious ones, like the mix up between there, their and they're.

Another one is to say, for example, that "-7 is MORE negative than -2". So many people do this, but the fact is that one negative number cannot be more or less negative than another.

 

[SckizoBoy]

'Organic'...

As a chemist, it infuriates me how this word has been appropriated by the lay-lexicon... and it's the fault of biologists! =P

...

Which is rich, coming from a guy who has a degree in ecology... ¬_¬

 

[Vault101]

emo

now granted this word and the Idea/subgroup it spawned has since fallen out of fashion, however there was such a backlash against the whole thing that people seemed to react with hate if there was any "angst" in a work/charachter what so ever...even if it did make sense and wasnt contrived

OR they use the term when it makes no fucking sense...a professional comedy writer once refered to Ezio from AC as looking "emo" or calling current Dante "emo" I mean seriously?

 

[Pink Gregory]

How about the made up word "irregardless"?? I hear that way too often now days. Another would be people thinking metaphors and similes are the same thing.

It's an honest mistake, either they're looking for 'irrespective' or 'regardless'.

 

[Yopaz]

"Of"


*cringe* Make it stop. I can understand making a mistake like this if you're a child and you've heard it but never read it, but come on. A grown-ass adult should have done enough reading in their life to understand this distinction.

I agree, I had to remove the examples because they induce nausea.

Then and than being mixed up really gets on my nerves.

Then = A word describing a sequence of events or a potential sequence of events.

Examples: I went to the shops and then I went home. + I am going to go home and then I shall have dinner.

Than = A word to compare things.

God yes! English is my second language, but I am able to tell the difference and the proper use.

Also personally I don't like that the word overrated seems to be a synonym to bad. It is not. I love Saints Row 2 and I consider it to be one of my favourite games of all time, but when I step back and take it in it's not really that special. It is overrated by a lot of us including me.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Sarcastic and facetious seem to commonly misused. At least to me.

I was always taught that a sarcastic remark implies contempt and is often used as a taunt; while being facetious implies harmless wittiness or good-humoured teasing, to not be taken at-all seriously.

 

[KelDG]

Would it be ironic if you wrote an example and got it wrong?

Luckily I made no such mistake!

Indeed. That'd be quite ironic.

Let's just play it and get this over with early, I've got a birthday party I need to go to soon.

Always gave me a chuckle this song, one of my mates said it should be called "Isn't it unfortunate". He did not realise the irony of a song about irony whose examples of irony were not ironic.

@Keoul - Sorry mate that last sentence might have just tipped you over the edge. don't hurt me

 

[Makhiel]

Does LOL count? And I don't mean using it as a word in everyday conversation, that's fine by me. I mean using it to denote slight amusement, instead of (lots of) loud laughter.

 

[FoolKiller]

How about the made up word "irregardless"?? I hear that way too often now days. Another would be people thinking metaphors and similes are the same thing.

That should tie with "could care less" for something you care little about.

 

[Red Mammoth]

IRONY
IRONY
IRONY
IRONY
And I'm done, that's literally the only word I can think of where people get all uppity about the meaning and such, for such a simple word it's meaning is just so hard to pin down...

Oh yeah and I thought people got over the whole "Gamer entitlement" thing by now?

Someone explained the meaning of irony to me once in a way I might HAVE understood back THEN;

Being struck by lightning while wearing metal armour. The armour acts as a lightning rod, causing you to be struck, when the armour was supposed to protect you.

In any case, I still have no clue what is ironic and what is not, so I'm just going to back to being sarcastic.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh, and that's another one. "White Knight". Insulting people and making insinuations about their motivations doesn't make you clever, or cool by virtue of cynicism. And unlike feelings of entitlement, where you can actually identify those statements, very rarely have I seen the term "White Knight" directed at someone who actually said their position was based on some misplaced chivalry.

But people talking about sexism make me feel bad, so attacking them and their motives is okay.

 

[Klumpfot]

"Welp." As in "Welp, I guess I'll just continue using this non-word!"

It isn't in Merriam-Webster or the Oxford Dictionary, it is incredibly ugly and it is more difficult (though only marginally) to type than "well", which is the word you actually mean to use. Kindly stop using it and save my eye's twitch muscles some undue strain!

 

[Epic Bear Man]

IRONY
IRONY
IRONY
IRONY
And I'm done, that's literally the only word I can think of where people get all uppity about the meaning and such, for such a simple word it's meaning is just so hard to pin down...

Oh yeah and I thought people got over the whole "Gamer entitlement" thing by now?

Someone explained the meaning of irony to me once in a way I might HAVE understood back THEN;

Being struck by lightning while wearing metal armour. The armour acts as a lightning rod, causing you to be struck, when the armour was supposed to protect you.

In any case, I still have no clue what is ironic and what is not, so I'm just going to back to being sarcastic.

Well irony has several different forms, there's situational irony, dramatic irony, and verbal irony.

Verbal irony is when you say something but mean another. For instance, if I was wearing a grotesque outfit and you said to me "Oh, that looks wonderful" but really meant "oh god, my eyes are slowly cannabalizing themselves after looking at that outfit!"; that would be verbal irony.

Dramatic irony is present only in entertainment, but it's when the audience knows one thing that the character doesn't know. If a father said to a child "I'll see you in the morning", and the child believed it whilst the audience knew he wouldn't be coming back, this would be dramatic irony.

Situational irony is when the action someone takes has a the opposite effect that we would assume would happen. Your suit of armor could work for situational irony. Another example of situational irony would be The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy goes on a long quest to see the wizard only to find out by the end that the ruby slipper she had allowed her to go back home at any moment. Likewise, the scarecrow seeking intelligence had it all along, the tin-man had compassion and a heart from the start, etc.

Does that help?

 

[BlastedTheWorm]

Here's one. I'm not sure if "misused" is correct, but it's certainly lost its original meaning.

Does anyone know what the word "meme" means? It's not a captioned picture...