Commonly misunderstood words that get your blood boiling

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JaymesFogarty

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quiet_samurai said:
It doesn't rally bother me alot, but I sometimes feel the need to correct people then they confuse things that are coincidental, unfortunate, or unique in varying degrees as being ironic.

Like

"Oh my god, didn't I just see you at that other place like five mins ago? It's ironic that we're both in this place now." No it isn't, it's just a coincidence.

"Oh my god, I went to the beach today and it totally rained, so ironic." No, that's just unfortunate.

However, the fact that people use non-ironic situations and call them ironic, makes the conversation in itself ironic. There is genius to be found in another's stupidity.
We are. Sorry, but it fits the theme of the thread rather well.
On topic, Americanisms seeping into British culture do get under my skin. It's aluminum! Also, the way some people pronounce H is infuriating.
 

Ziggy the wolf

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May 26, 2009
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Eren Murtaugh said:
My pet peeve is of a taboo word.
******.
Dictionary definition: A rude, immoral, or otherwise ignorant person.
Why it pisses me off; 1: The moment you call someone that out of spite, you yourself become a ******. 2: African-Americans calling each other it. They'd get pissed if someone called them ignorant or rude as a greeting, but adding an illogically placed "A" at the end makes it OK?
oh dude you couldnt be more right. im black and i hate to even hear the word because its bad in anyones mouth. for my word its like. when people: it was like so fucking awesome. its so annoying and it makes you sound like bloody idiot
 

the Dept of Science

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superstringz said:
I have a particularly egregious (second definition) scorn for people who misuse egregious
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Egregious
Unless you are being ironic, your sentence is misusing egregious. You presumably mean that you have a strong scorn, not a conspicuously poor scorn. The misuses might be egregious, but your scorn for it is not.

WrathOfAchilles said:
Theory and Hypothesis. Pisses me the F right off. So tired of someone thinking of an idea and calling it a theory "I have a theory" bullshit you do. Until it's been proven correct under certain circumstances it's an hypothesis. If it gets proven enough it becomes a law, but you don't start with a theory.
This is also wrong. You start with a theory (eg. there is a force given off by very large objects that pulls other objects towards them) and from the theory you make a testable hypothesis (eg. Objects in the air will fall to the ground). Scientists know that something can never be totally proven, which is why we still refer to "the theory of gravity" or "the theory of evolution".

Think I'm wrong? I'm the Department of fuckin' SCIENCE.


Anyways, I think a lot of these examples come from people not realising that language is always changing and is defined entirely by usage. When St Paul's cathedral was first built, it was called "awful", which then meant "full of awe". If someone refers to a new song as "wicked", unless they are a fundamentalist religious type, we know they mean "of high quality" rather than "evil". To take some examples from the thread, while once meaning a specific punishment of the Roman army, now means to destroy. Queer originally meant strange, then it was adopted by the gay community in the 50s to mean homosexual (posative connotations), then it became used by non-gays to refer to gays in a negative way.
 
May 5, 2010
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Pretty much the idea of swear words. The only thing that makes the word "shit" more offensive then the word "poop" is the fact that we aren't aloud to say it! But the only reason we AREN'T aloud to say it is because...it's offensive! But the only reason it's offensive is because WE AREN'T ALOUD TO FUCKING SAY IT!
 

Snarky Username

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Apr 4, 2010
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sennius said:
Obvious one is "ironic"
Me looking like someone you met before is not ironic!
Well irony is when something happens even though it's opposite of what you'd expect to happen.

an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
So most people would expect no one to look like someone they know unless they were that someone they knew. The opposite of that would be someone looking like that someone they knew. So it would be within the bounds of irony.
 

Extraintrovert

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dthvirus said:
This thread half full of pedantics and elitists. I'm surprised people here don't use the word 'gay' for 'joyful'. Or 'dived' instead of 'dove'. C'mon guys.
The word "elitist". Apparently no-one is allowed to know more than anyone else, otherwise they're an elitist. Which is bad, m'kay.
 

WrathOfAchilles

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the Dept of Science said:
superstringz said:
I have a particularly egregious (second definition) scorn for people who misuse egregious
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Egregious
Unless you are being ironic, your sentence is misusing egregious. You presumably mean that you have a strong scorn, not a conspicuously poor scorn. The misuses might be egregious, but your scorn for it is not.

WrathOfAchilles said:
Theory and Hypothesis. Pisses me the F right off. So tired of someone thinking of an idea and calling it a theory "I have a theory" bullshit you do. Until it's been proven correct under certain circumstances it's an hypothesis. If it gets proven enough it becomes a law, but you don't start with a theory.
This is also wrong. You start with a theory (eg. there is a force given off by very large objects that pulls other objects towards them) and from the theory you make a testable hypothesis (eg. Objects in the air will fall to the ground). Scientists know that something can never be totally proven, which is why we still refer to "the theory of gravity" or "the theory of evolution".

Think I'm wrong? I'm the Department of fuckin' SCIENCE.


Anyways, I think a lot of these examples come from people not realising that language is always changing and is defined entirely by usage. When St Paul's cathedral was first built, it was called "awful", which then meant "full of awe". If someone refers to a new song as "wicked", unless they are a fundamentalist religious type, we know they mean "of high quality" rather than "evil". To take some examples from the thread, while once meaning a specific punishment of the Roman army, now means to destroy. Queer originally meant strange, then it was adopted by the gay community in the 50s to mean homosexual (posative connotations), then it became used by non-gays to refer to gays in a negative way.
Do you even read what you write? Also who taught you to understand what you read? I'm not posting again on this topic, as I've stated multiple times now a hypothesis comes from your OWN idea, not the work of others. Why would you even attempt to use theories of physics to prove your point? That's using the tested work of others. Point two, you refer to yourself as "the Department of fuckin' SCIENCE." which immediately disqualifies you from having a any 3 digit IQ. Point three, I HYPOTHESIS you're about 15 and posting content you find off google from the look of it.

\End Participation in Thread
 

kickyourass

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I can't list them all cause then I'd probably be listing at about 40% of the entire English language. But Ironic is one that stands out pretty well.
 

I Max95

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Mar 23, 2009
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"havent been No"...whatever
how did that become common place to say something that means the exact oposite
havent been no means their is in fact some
havent been ANY is the correct term
 

cWg | Konka

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Feb 9, 2010
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SilverStrike said:
EMP Pulse.
RPG Game.
What does the acronym stand for ladies and gentlemen? Yes. Good. Now, do you realise you are effectively saying Electro-Magnetic Pulse Pulse?
And Role Playing Game Game?
people who cant tell acronym from initialisms
 

octafish

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Apr 23, 2010
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Acronym technically means a word formed by the letters in an intialism, for example RADAR or DARPA. If you pronounce the letters as in RPG, ATM, or FPS it isn't an acronym. I've come to accept that most people aren't as pedantic as I am and try not to let it bother me.

My biggest annoyance however is the misuse and abuse of the apostrophe, particularly when your is used instead of you're.
 

Dexiro

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tkioz said:
Dexiro said:
Eren Murtaugh said:
My pet peeve is of a taboo word.
******.
Dictionary definition: A rude, immoral, or otherwise ignorant person.
Racism is about the intent of language not the language itself which is why I hate the PC crowd, granted there are some words that are pretty much irredeemable but come-off it.
I hate that too. I have used racial slurs occasionally around my black friends, everyone being fully aware that it's just a joke. But then someone might overhear and make a fuss about it, as though i'm insulting these black guys that i'm having a laugh with or something(?).
I mean it's not like i go around using these words when my black friends aren't there just incase something is heard out of context, but when they are their my situation must be pretty obvious.
 

SomethingUnrelated

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Agayek said:
TylerC said:
People also call games RPGs when they're not. My friend said Halo was an RPG because you are playing as Master Chief.
To be fair, technically Halo is an RPG. You are playing the role of the Master Chief in the story. It's one of the many problems inherent with the incredibly lax definition of "Role-Playing Game" these days.
Sooo... the term 'RPG' as it is commonly held by most people, has become pretty much obsolete?



To be on topic, the only poor word choice thing that really outright bothers me is the standard "I could care less" shenanigans. If people would only take a few seconds to think about it, they're realize just how fallacious such a statement is, but no one ever does.[/quote]
 

AngryMongoose

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tkioz said:
For me it's the sapience / sentience problem
Umm... what definitions are you using for each? It seems to be, since the subject of sentience is tricky and some people only describe sapient creatures as truly sentient.

blakfayt said:
Decimate, meaning, to reduce by 1/10th ...If I hear one more guy talk about getting decimated on a game and his screen is utterly devoid of troops I will punch a kitten. Also, Irony, good god why can't people use it right any more?
It is DERIVED from a word meaning "To reduce by 1/10th" but that isn't what it exclusively means in either common or dictionary (including Oxford and webster) usage.
 

eggy32

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The use of the word none annoys me sometimes. People don't know that it means not one. Like when somebody says "There are none." It sounds silly when you think they just said "there are not one."
 

Shoqiyqa

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jackknife402 said:
I hate the word Awesome. It means "god-like in appearance." Part the oceans for me ***** then if you think you're awesome.


Also ******, cuz I like calling people bundle of wood, meaning they're only good to be used in a fire, not calling them gay.


gay [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gay]
late 12c., "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry" (12c.); cf. O.Sp. gayo, Port. gaio, It. gajo. Ultimate origin disputed; perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"), though not all etymologists accept this. Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays, but the word evidently was not popularly felt in this sense until later (cf. the stage comedy "London Assurance" written 1841 and popular through early 20c., with its character Lady Gay Spanker, famously played by Mrs. Nisbett). The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1630s. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.
I've heard or read that it was adopted as an abbreviation: Good As You.

For personal contributions to this thread, see the recent "mistakes everyone makes" thread.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.213417.7462253
 

Tattaglia

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Horde is nearly always misspelt as hoard. It pisses me off a great deal.
On that note, people tend to clump "a lot" into "alot" a lot of the time (har har).

Not really a case of misunderstanding words, but it still annoys the hell out of me.