The words Mommy and daddy

What amuses me is that literally no-one understands irony.

"Skunking" is how words transform as languages used to diverge prior to mass communication. A word like "embarrassed" in English means exposed to shame or awkwardness. In Spanish "Embarassada" means pregnant. Or the English word Arena means the floor of a stadium, in Spanish it means sand. Same latin roots.

@@j_vasey I'd like to see a *RobWords* video whose sole topic is the word "ironic."

Impacted as affected, simplistic as simple, cheers as thanks, brilliant as good or excellent, awesome as impressive or good, hella as very, fantastic as anything better than good, unbelievable as something that impressively believable, like as an interrupter in place of any unintelligible interrupter. “Revert back” (what other direction can one go?). “Free gratis”, “free gift”, and “gifted”. Don’t even get me started on the word “organic“. I’m sure there are others but that’s just off the top of my head or they’re not common in my social vocabulary. Some words are so grossly misused that I would not even characterize them as such, since it seems so obvious.

Yes, that one is particularly loathsome to me.

Every time I've ever heard the phrases "my truth" or "your truth" I interpret it as opinion. So what may have initially been the actual truth has now been reduced to that person's opinion by use of the modifier.

Well if there even is such a thing as truth, the only things that fall under it are general facts like "it's raining" or "a thing x exists", if we increase the complexity of thoughts to choose from we would find that there won't be much, if any that every mentally capable person would agree on. So truth, much like simultaneity in relativity depends on frame of reference.

Goes along with this new political trend of "alternative facts"...

I think the problem may be that while truth is truth, any statement of a truth is still based on assumptions, including the meaning of terms. One example is the question what is ll + ll? depending on how you interpret it the answer could be 22, IV, or IIII.

Oh my gosh, I love this. 😅

Holy cow I didn’t know that! Thank you for sharing your awful artificial historical knowledge. 😉

And “natural” was an insult because it hadn’t had any improvement made to it…

...and there there is the Bible verse, which in the King James translation reads "Good is awful" (or "Good is awesome" in new translations).

Yes, "awful" used to mean inspiring awe. Likewise "terrible" used to mean inspiring terror; there was a Royal Navy ship called HMS Terrible!

Never be disabused by the stupidity of people.

Are you Stevie Wonder?

Cleverly said!

I found this comment most bemusing.

@@azlanadil3646 read more slowly, then it becomes amusing ;)

Such things are humbling if you already humbly don’t think you deserve them. And thus, getting them, rubs the humble person’s nose in the fact that he doesn’t deserve them. Because, “now” in such a situation, he can’t help but think of these things he doesn’t deserve.

A lot of virtue-signalling these days results in unwitting irony. People pretending to be humble are a case of this.

​@@grizzlygrizzle certain people literally bragging about how humble they are comes to mind...

@@Candlemancer Uriah Heep !

Yes!

It also makes real gaslighting often go ignored, trivialising these sorts of terms can be really dangerous socially

Interesting, the movie was made in 1944, doesn't take long for change to take place.

Thanks for clarifying. I could never get my head around the actual meaning of this word, but your explanation makes it clear to me why I was so often confused.

I haven't heard it misused, but I won't question you if you have. Wait, I take that back. You didn't see it misused. It was all your imagination. (hope the joke tone came through there)

no its not. its what sam beckett does when his mind is transferred into another body at the end of each episode.

True. But when quantum is used in this context it is shorthand for quantum physics. So it refers to the massive progressions made in our understanding of physics when studing that which is quantum.

I think quantum leap is more like an abrupt change, a move from one state to another without going through the states (we would normally consider to be) in-between.

Correct ​@@eliavrad2845

I'm not sure if it would be "skunking" for a technical term to take on a metaphorical usage in other contexts. At the very least it wouldn't have the issue of ambiguity that the video is talking about. But yeah @eliavrad2845 is right, it's a step change as opposed to a continuous one, like an electron popping from one orbital to another. The fact that it's a "small" thing that we commonly use to mean something "big" is nonetheless very um ... *ironic*

I have to admit that I always wondered why “apologist” was used to describe a person who defended an article of faith.

@John Runyon ---> Yep. See: 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 15 in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. reason / evidence / answer / defense.

yeah, and that's why we would rather have repentance than apologies.

In Spanish, this origin of apology is much more clear. Our only use of "apología" (hacer apología de algo) refers to vehemently defend some idea (now it is usually used with negative things to be apologetic about like "apología del terrorismo" -publicly defending terrorism- , which is illegal, by the way)

I've stopped using "apologist" because it's so easily misunderstood.

"Wonderful" and "marvelous" had a similar shift of meaning.

Well, that happened a long time ago. They were using it that way when I was a kid in the early 1970s. I think that we can consider that word definition to have official changed.

Yes - like “frightfully good” - although that one seems to have mostly fallen out of usage.

"Tremendous" is the same. Tremendo", in Italian, means "the most horrible." "Gorgeous" could be another example. The Romantics were responsible for beginning this: they lionised Death, Suffering and dangerous gorges and mountaintops!

Same for awe. It's original meaning encompassed fear rather than just wonder and amazement.

I didn't know that, thanks. I just looked it up and learned more today. 👍

Why do we need to distinguish between those two things?

GDP itself a name though, and the nym in acronym specifically denotes that it's a name given to something in place of the words that the letters represent. There's no reasonable need do differentiate pronouncing it as letters or as a word. SCUBA can be spoken as letters or pronounced "Skooba". It might even be more correct to speak each letter, since the precursor SCBA is only pronounced as letters

I imagine that, when mathematicians use it with each other, the accurate meaning is preserved. Is it not mainly the public metaphorical extension that tends to distort the meaning?

That could be the definition in math, but even in general use, wouldn't exponential mean something that grows at any accelerating rate? Whereas grows steadily could mean "growing linearly", growing exponentially can describe anything that grows at a variable rate, but generally accelerating faster than linear growth. Just some thoughts!

Exponential growth is not necessarily constant. You can raise something to the power of a function. The common use of the word isn't technically wrong

@@jenm1 By your logic there's no point in distinguishing between e.g. linear growth, power laws, exponentials, logarithms etc, since all of them are linear if you look at a short enough segment of them. For the terms to be useful, they should cover enough of the function to be clearly distinguishable from each other, so for example many doublings for an exponential function. And that isn't the case for the common use of the word, where there usually is no time span over which an exponential function would be a better match than a linear function or a parabola.

I look at "exponential" as one of many words that has both a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. The literal meaning of exponential is the mathematical meaning that you mentioned. The figurative meaning is "rapidly growing" as you also stated. In my own speech and writing, I try to use the literal meanings of words like this and to avoid the figurative meanings, because the literal meanings rarely cause confusion, whereas the figurative meanings can certainly cause confusion. Exponential is also one of many mathematical terms that people use without full thinking through the mathematical meaning. For example, people will talk about something being "reduced to a fraction" of its previous number (or value, or cost, etc.). When people say this, they are typically thinking of a small fraction, like 1/10, or 1/5, or certainly something less than 1/2. But it always occurs to me that the fraction could be something like 99/100, or even something that would indicate an increase, like 4/3 or 7/2.

It’s just a theory, A GAME THEORY 😭

@@chinmustache6420 Someone had to say it.

oh that is correct... 'gravity is just a theory'...

Yep, I see it with creationists all the time

This is not an example of a bleached word. The use of the term use in modern science is not the original sense of the word. The word certainly has never been restricted to theories believed in by professional scientists. "It's only a theory" is said of many things other than scientific theories. But it can even be said of those scientific theories that "it is only a theory". It is completely possible that any given modern scientific theory may not be absolutely true. But again, the sense of the word that is used in scientific studies is a modern sense of the word, anyway.

😂😂

This sounds like something out of Word Crimes

Rob, some say issue (ish-you) and some say ish-you. Or: inishiate and inishiate. Is it regiolect or sociolect? Do you know more about it?

You're probably American saying refrigerator whereas most other English speakers say fridge, although I believe it's becoming commoner in the States. It interests me, as Americans always seemed to streamline and abbreviate words first historically. When I watched American films as a kid in the 50s, 'automobile' (technically any sort of vehicle, I realise) was commonly used instead of simply 'car', a much less unwieldy word. Also 'vehicle', pronounced 'vehirickle' in Texas and the South, is still used by some cops. Words are fascinating.

Do you smile because of the speling eror?

Phobia: an irrational aversion to _X._ As such, homophobia can be correctly described as a true phobia, since homosexuality, in and of itself, poses no threat to anyone. The term is extended, somewhat tenuously, to include aversions to homosexual people, art with homosexual themes, discussions of homosexuality or academic study of topics related to homosexuality. If one exhibits aversions to such things, and one objects to being called homophobic, it becomes necessary to explain why the aversion(s) are _not_ irrational. In other words, some things, such as homosexuality, are so banal that an aversion to it can reasonably be presumed to be irrational. This same line of reasoning holds for many modern "phobias".

​@@TestUser-cf4wj Isn't it ironic how most normal people don't actually care, yet the homosexuals are aggressively heterophobic and project as a primary means of coping? It's always amused me.

That's what I thought too - like, I remember thinking that it *did* mean that before college, that "deci-" was just standing in for any small fraction that something could be reduced to, rather than to this specific historical punishment (and one about reducing *by* a fraction) that was later used metaphorically.

That's exactly what I thought it meant until right now.

but thats a global trend, most people will only know the "obliterate" sense and derive that from "reducing TO only a tenth", and dont even think it could mean to just reduce BY a tenth ... well , also cuz the whole concept is gone, our taxes are no longer only 10% (oh what a wonderful world that would be xD), so be dont think about "tithes" (which also comes from the word "ten/tenth") or the whole concept anymore

Worse yet, the tenth man was killed by his other nine comrades.

I think "decimate" still is used to mean what it meant to affected roman soldiers: "be subjected to an unescapablable, very painful, devastating and lasting change". Even if "only" every 10th soldier was killed, that's still quite horrible.

Yes! I didn't think about it but I agree. "Iconic" is one word that's being diluted by people who understand its original meaning.

But doesn't the latter become the former over time? I assume "awesome" shifted to mean "very good" by people who knew the meaning "inspiring awe" and used it hyperbolically. These days many people don't know that etymology at all, and those who do know don't generally think about it when they hear the word in typical usage.

Using words as hyperbole is at least one step up the linguistic ladder compared to the verbally challenged who use 'f***ing' and 'bloody' as adjectives for every second word. That category, the verbally challenged, seems to be quite numerous here in Australia.

@@nkm6789 Sure, that happens eventually. But its still a different path to get there than words like bemused or enormity. People arent using them metaphorically for emphasis - they just dont know what they mean. I think thats a valuable and interesting difference.

Bullshit emphasis. I cringe (inwardly, if not literally) every time I hear “Amazing!” as a reaction to something as excrementally mundane as giving an order in a restaurant.

nice originally meant precise.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!

It occurs in the famous BCP prayer “Prevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour”, and in that sense means “Go before us” or “Precede us”

So preventing, is like tailgating??

Sending invitations and warning against are both warnings

Nauseous and nauseated!

Why do I find myself trying to like your video several times over the course of the video 😅 several times over 😅

Great series

Excellent example, though I suspect "utilize" is also the kind of word that is used by office staff to sound clever. I don't know what the term is, but at airports, one constantly hears "Please proceed to..." Why not "Please go to Gate 18"? It's much easier to understand. I don't know what to call this fake-formal register.

@@sherylbegby proceed is thru old french from the latin - pro cedere (forward go) Rob talked about the impact of French on English in another vid. Short version - the rulers spoke french so french means rich and fancy now.

When I copy edited one of my prof’s PhD dissertation, I changed each “utilize” to “use” (along with an explanatory note in the margins).

@@draig2614 You're a keeper.

Sorry mate, this is a lost battle.

Much like the people who believe that 'penultimate' is an intensification of 'ultimate'.

@@daddymuggle Personally, I aspire to being antepenultimate, lol

@@nicolaplays1134 it's always good to meet such an ambitious person as yourself. Antepenultimate is obviously better, as it has more letters.

LOL. Or "flammable and inflammable."

It should be noted that some authors might use words in a creative way for irony's sake. Like, calling Tom Hanks "infamous" could be tongue-in-cheek... But then someone else is going to come along, not know that, and think "infamous" means super famous, and then that spreads and suddenly it is skunked... all because of some jerk being clever. (Note: I definitely do this sort of thing.) (Note2: I'm not saying that's what happened here, just that it's something that could happen.)

Average and its synonyms have been used as insults for centuries: mean, common, villain, etc. all are used by people who feel they are above-average to look down on the majority.

The line that amuses/bemuses/gobsmacks me is when you hear some politician saying "By the end of my term in office, every American (Australian in my case) will have an above average income." and no member of the press challenges the absurdity of that boast.

@@allenjenkins7947 Maybe they're talking about present average, not future average.

​@@allenjenkins7947 cause we all hate unbased (that word might've been skunked), over-optimistic statements, do we? (no, that wasn't sarcastic)

That has already happened to the word "mean". Today, when saying that somebody is being "mean", you don't mean they're acting in a normal/average way, but worse than that.

In Dutch we say "twijfelen" and the 'twij' also comes from 'twee', which means 'two' in English. I had no idea! Thanks for pointing that out!

Ah, the rare kind of person who looks up words in the dictionary to ponder their meaning. Apparently "character" comes from the word "chisel", which is a sharp tool which you can use to carve something out of stone. This would make one think, doesn't it? As opposed to personality, character is thus something actively developed. That is why we say someone truly has character, as if it's a good thing. And indeed, it is Language holds many wisdoms like those, as long as you check

@@captainzork6109 WTH is a "dictionary"? Just kidding... though I haven't seen a paper one in decades. I love etymology though, and I love the fact that my e-reader lets me call up the definition (including etymology) of any word by a simple tap on the screen.

I agree with your sentiment, but it is impossible to fight the tides of ignorance with regard to language.

Whenever I see/hear the word bemused I always had the feeling of a combination of confusion and amusement. Such as if you hear something that could have two meanings, often contradictory or one of them rude I might feel bemused. Confused as to which was intended, but also amused by the confusion.

I didn't even know it could be used in any other way until I watched this video!

I had literally never heard 'bemused' used to mean amused until I watched this video. Yes, literally 'never'. Oh, wait, adding 'literally' literally added nothing to the concept of 'never'. Oh well.

@@chilversc Yeah, I don't see why everyone gets all up in arms about a word's change of meaning. Why have two words meaning confused when you can get more specific with your words and have one of them mean "amused bewilderment"?

Not really. You can still get all the same meaning out, it just takes a few more words. It’s a bit more clunky but we’re not really “losing tools of communication”. Honestly, a lot of words get their meaning changed specifically because we weren’t really using them a lot in the first place. I mean, how often do you need a word that means “from, or relating to a legend”. Probably not often. This is somewhat unrelated, but I wonder what will happen to “literally”. For now people have basically begun using it as a superlative but ironically if everyone exclusively uses it as a superlative, then it loses its impact, and then people use it less, allowing it’s original meaning to resurface. No idea, not a linguist. This is just conjecture.

…like “literally”…

@@azlanadil3646I literally died? 😊

@@azlanadil3646 but he has a point, the word being the tool, you just lost that tool, and now need another, or a few.

​@@azlanadil3646 If you lose your hammer, you can still bash nails in where you need them with a wrench to get the job done, but that doesn't change the fact that you lost the proper tool and now have to improvise something more awkward.

Super random! Awesome!

I've seen/heard a lot of people (especially young ones) misuse bemused, as well as a lot of words. For some reason, they seem to think that a word that sounds like another word is the same thing as that other word. Um, cognates are usually inter-lingual, not intra-lingual. 😒 Yes, it's possible for a language to have multiple words that sound and mean the same, but it's not very common because it's pointless, and most of the ones that exist are from exactly THIS misunderstanding.

"Labours under" must be some weird British phrase, because it's an illogical assertion for me as an American.

A lot of very uneducated people find new and unusual ways to use vocabulary.

No one can have their own truth. Truth is the sum of facts that are, whether you want to believe in them or not. Anyone who says otherwise is a nutcase.

🥰🥰🥰

I tell my sons, "If it is not in a beaker, it is not a solution."

I swear that 60% of all companies (and 80% of tech companies!) founded since 2000 have "solutions" in their name.

@@pokerformuppets "close proximity"

@@tobycatVA The non-chemical usage is actually about as old, if not older, than the chemical one. "A particular instance or method of solving or settling; an explanation, answer, or decision" is the first meaning from ca. 1384; the "solution" you are talking about didn't come about until 1390.

Dropped is still used in that way, but I feel it was always more common in the type of sentences where the subject is omitted and it describes something happening to the object. Like "Brad Pitt got dropped from the movie". Altho, saying that sentence makes me think of another new meaning of dropped, meaning to suddenly get beaten up.

I dislike the new use of drop as release, because to me it always sounds like they oopsie dropped it on the floor. Silly, but more accurate.

@@user-ff4tw8uf4b The meaning is unlikely to change, given the adoption of 'drop' in MMORPGs as a term for the loot that a mob gives upon being defeated -- "You're trying to get X? Those only drop from [insert mob name here]."

It's interesting that the Dutch version of the word ("prima") seems to be on the same path as "fine."

Or to mean "not at all fine" in some situations!

eh, i think it's new meaning is fine.

@@DantevanGemert That's quite interesting because German also uses "prima" quite often, but it still very much means "excellent".

@@DantevanGemert the Dutch version of "fine" is "fijn". I'm feeling fine - ik voel me fijn. Fine dust - fijne stof. Fine wine - fijne wijn. A fine woman - een fijne vrouw.

I hope the surgery went well. That's quite an amusing anecdote.

Almost uniquely literal? I hope you made a full recovery.

At least you weren't gaslighted. Gaslit? Congrats on getting your brain back! 😁

The word "brainwashing" is often meant to be the same as "indoctrination", but if you give it a bit of thought, it means just the opposite.

I've heard somewhere that 'brainwashing' is an attempt to translate from Chinese (?) and the original is more like 'heart washing' but us, westerners did them dirty If someone knows the exact language please correct me, my memory is fuzy and I heard it in one of livestreams on other channel so no way to back up anything 😅

I think some of the non-eager aspect of “anxious” has reemerged in recent decades as people have become more open with discussing their anxiety. When I was a kid in the 70s/80s I only took it to mean eager.

as an l2 speaker I had to think of expressions with these words to decypher a meaning of each so it kind of confirms your statement

@@RJGa That's 'ambivalence' where you experience two conflicting or contradictory ideas or emotions.

I've only heard the "eager" sense of the word "anxious" in movies from the 90s and earlier. I think it's come and gone at this point.

I guess this is the reason that "awesome" and "awful" now mean opposite things? Or not?

Cool!

It's certainly "watered down" into no meaning when everything from a dust mote to a to a statement inspires anoesis.

But there is hope. We have always had "awe-inspiring" which is much nicer anyway.

but thats a cultural shift, not really an "i dont know what a foreign word means so i simply use it wrong" shift. its similar to ...lets say japanese, where adressing someone by a high title was to show respect which over time somehow shifted to being derogatory since seemingly it must have become seen as ironically ... or in german the word "merkwürdig" = strange/creepy which literally is "markworthy"/noteworthy but no native speaker _feels_ this literal meaning, it is solely meaning strange and the notion of noteworthy does not even cross the mind even if it its partially in the expression. but that _was_ the original meaning, just that a cultural shift moved the meaning from noteworthy cuz something is particularily good to noteworthy cuz it is particularily abnormal

I don't think that's much of a changing of meaning. People have long had a tendency to especially honor or worship "cute" things.

@@jovetjI’ve read that cute characteristics - large eyes, small heads, soft fur/hair - have evolved to ensure survival, even if with help from another species. We, as humans and other animals, recognize this as vulnerability, as youth and helplessness. It’s interesting, in that sense, that we *would” adulate and respect the young and weak to ensure our own species’ survival.

Even worse is the tendancy to use 'Adorable' to describe ugly babies. i.e. It's capable of being adored, just not by me! Would likely grow up to 'Have a face for Radio'

My dog is adorable (to me) :)

@@derekmills5394 "Cute" and "adorable" are still just opinions. Same for "pretty" "beautiful" "voluptuous" "ugly" "uncomely" "fat" "skinny" "hairy" "loud" "quiet" "tall" "short" "sexy" and so on....

me too on that one.

@@meadow-maker Yes I agree. I've never heard bemused used to mean amused. As for "literally", I've always felt that people (in a lot of cases sports commentators) who used the word literally to add hyperbole to a figurative statement, are just demonstrating that they are stupid. Private Eye's Colemanballs column took the piss out of this quite a lot. One word you could have cited is "presently", which originally meant "now".

I’m also with you, both on bemused and the Princess Bride quote (one of my all-time favorite movies).

@@davespagnol8847 we “literally” have a lot of linguistic corruption to thank commentators and other similar journalists for. They seem, generally, to be ignorant in the extreme!

I could be wrong, but I think it's a British thing

Just like _jealous_ often used for _envious._ 😥

At the same time, I would say that just because someone took two common English words like "intrusive" and "thought" and made a specific technical term out of it, that does not mean that everyone else is banned from ever using those words in another way ever again. So, you're example would be a non-sensical use of "intrusive thought". Has anyone ever used it that way? But, if I say that a thought was intruding in an unwelcome way into my mind, then I don't think it is wrong to call it an intrusive thought just because I have not paid a psycho-whateverist to clinically diagnose me with something.

@@NickRoman This sounds more like your own personal qualms with the field of psychology clouding your opinion on word usage.

​@@NickRoman Please use the apostrophe correctly, it's confusing when you used it incorrectly, it takes away its meaning.

​@@NickRoman what you're describing would still be an intrusive thought. intrusive thoughts don't need a diagnosis. The issue the original comment is talking about is people using the term intrusive thought to describe thoughts that are just sudden or impulsive, NOT thoughts that are intruding in an unwelcome or distressing way, which is what the term actually means

😂

@@cheriastrahan8453 What a legend! ;)

I am mildly AMUSED.

that is really my most beloved statement.

I think the reason 'literally' has altered so much is that it's, well, literally such a great word for emphasis :) Hopefully no one was triggered by my use of 'great' to not mean something large :)

congrats on having the only grandkids in the world who say titular enough for it to be an analysable trend

eponymous does mean the same thing as titular most of the time though??

I know what you mean. I spent the morning writing a rather sharp-tongued letter to our local newspaper, suggesting that they strongly encourage their reporters to write in the inverted pyramid style. And, I said, who knows? They might then go on to spelling, grammar, homonyms, the list is endless! My husband said I was being curmudgeonly. :)

It's kinda the opposite of credible..it's INcredible

Opposite of credible meaning worthwhile and sound. Incredible would naturally mean false evidence or not worthy to be listened to.

Hear, hear! This one actually generated this sentence in one of my students' papers: "The evidence doesn't have to be incredible to prove [the point]." I tried to explain that "incredible" means "unbelievable," but that word now means the same thing--incredibly good. Skunked.

I like the Credible Hulk, he always cites his sources.

Ironic that unbelievable is now a synonym of incredible.

My father ran a fuel terminal where he got the refined product from the refinery by pipeline, stored it in a tank farm, and had a fleet of fuel trucks that distributed it to the stations. That is the same story he told me.

hence loving animals and being against cruelty and also consuming animals.

I love my animals and eating them too... wait a minute maybe that's cake!

Truth! I know I'm regrettably guilty of doing this very thing.🤦🏻‍♀️ Instead of saying, "I don't care", I should say something like "I don't care to think about that right now, it's too much for me to process, please give me some time to consider your position." That's what I really mean, but it's just laziness on my part to shorten it to "I don't care."😐

I hope I'm not using "cognitive dissonance" incorrectly. I've never used ambivalence in its technical sense, but it would be more convenient than saying "it gives me a sense of cognitive dissonance." Loving someone who has done terrible things because they're family, for example. I just wasn't aware there was a word for it, and I don't think anyone I know is aware either.

What do you think about the spelling "extrovert"? In anything written by psychologists, it's spelled "extravert,"-and therefore I consider this the correct spelling-but everyone else spells it with an "o." Even spellcheck marks "extravert" as a misspelling as I type this.

Nailed it.

Look at the children all at their play oh how to see them so happy and gay.!

Yes, especially when they mean logarithmic!

The most skunked math term is: less than 3.

I once heard someone say that a particular item (I can't remember what) was growing, not just geometrically, but exponentially. *sigh*

@@Fetherkoevery mathematical concept that cannot be done with fingers to advanced.

At least when it is misused it is usually done so via exaggeration. It is then possible they do MEAN exponential, even though the thing is not actually changing exponentially. I use exponential in non-maths contexts, but it only feels right when the thing is actually changing at least somewhat exponentially.

I'm North American and I find it jarring, too.

I also find it jarring, but I've made my peace with it somewhat by imagining an unspoken "but I don't" at the end of the sentence :)

It's ignorance. Sheer ignorance. Mr. Rob has already done a great video on such mistakes such as you describe. Naturally, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head this moment...

Sarcasm becoming misuse.

Mayhap “awe-inspiring” would do the trick?

I totally agree. The word awesome has been ruined!

And along the same lines, "awful", having degraded to simply meaning "bad", rather than "worthy of fear, respect, or reverence."

@@MattakiUtsuro How about "Aw Yeah!"

The difference between it's and its. Grammar freak here 😛

Whenever it's in doubt, I either say "truly unique" (or in technical contexts, "globally unique"), or for the other meaning "relatively/fairly unique", or even "highly unique".

I have not found an easy solution for literally. I basically don't use it in the figurative sense, and in the non-figurative sense, I usually just explain myself "He was 8 feet tall. That's not an exaggeration."

Such a strict definition for the word unique would make it practically unusable though. There aren't many things that you can definitively say are one of a kind in such a large universe. None, I would say. And so if you open it up to be subjectively one of a kind, then it is open for many other uses as well. (IE- If a child makes a random sculpture in an art class, even though they made it, you can't be sure someone else, somewhere else didn't also make that exact same thing, therefore it would not actually be unique, even if you think it is)

@rdizzy1 Aside from the fact that I don't think you need absolute certainty to say something, I think you're imagining the wrong kind of use case. For example, if I receive furniture from IKEA, the instruction manual might tell me that each part has a sticker with a unique label (e.g. A1, A2, B1, etc.). This unique still means "one of a kind" within the system. One of a kind doesn't always mean one of a kind in the whole universe. The meaning that it's being confused by is more akin to "unusual". Something like "Kansas City is unique because it crosses a state border." While that's fairlly unusual, it's not actually the only city to do this, and no context suggesting we're only looking at a particular group of cities. For what it's worth, there are actually still universal unique things we can say with some confidence. "Southeast Idaho is unique, because it is the only place that the U.S. Constitution makes it impossible to convict someone of a crime." I can be quite confident I haven't missed anywhere (assuming I take the time to research). Similarly, "The number zero is unique, because it is the only real number which is neither positive nor negative."

@@rdizzy1 if someone else made a thing that was physically identical then both items would be unique, because they were made by different people (and probably at different times and in different locations) and certainly from different materials

I know nothing of the Persian language, but it sounds like what you're describing may be a distinction that used to exist in English but has disappeared. It used to be considered incorrect to say "come here" because "here" refers specifically to a location (where the speaker is). Saying "come here" would be like saying "come New York" -- wrong. The proper thing to say was "come hither". Now "hither" only exists in the fossilized expression "hither and thither", and everyone says "come here".

To add to your point about languages changing because people don’t care enough to preserve the correct spellings and meanings: what a lot of the “languages have always changed throughout history so you should just accept it” people don’t realise that one of the main reasons languages changed so much in the past is because such a large portion of the population was illiterate, which compounded the issue of people not even being aware that they were altering their language. To suggest that we are the no better than these illiterate people from the past is a tad patronising and is one of the reasons we should now refrain from altering words as they exist in the present day.

I like resurrecting words like hither. Thanks for the reminder. Thither might be a bit more of a challenge because I've always heard people say hither and tither. My spellcheck seems to confirm both it at this very moment. (But I've just googled it, and now I see that a tither is a ten-percenter. Different pronunciation.)@@forrcaho

Except that now there's a thing called the internet which is open to the masses. All 8 billion of us. Good luck slowing the tsunami. Maybe AI can save us.@@quartzking3997

@@forrcaho In Wales people say "Come by here" or "Go by there" which may sound odd to an English ear but makes sense literally in the literal sense, y'know like.

"Insane" and "epic" are the two I always consider to have been ruined by social media. They're just used as fancy enhancers of whatever is being talked about.

Or sick, being great

You're going to really hate what us Kiwis have done to the word "mean", then @@kathleenking47

That's not really skunked, just gained a new meaning. You can still use it in the original sense without being misunderstood.

This one drives me nuts. There are sooo many videos titled "The Insane Biology of ...", "The Insane Engineering of ...", etc. It bugs me so much, I refuse to watch any of them. :-/

That's pretty funny. That said, it would be a lot more impressive if you could rapidly evolve specimens into new species for your clients!

I think this one prolly happens cuz speciation is _painfully_ similar to a portmanteau of the words, so it's easy to misinterpret -w-'

@@foul-fortune-feline aha yeah, I can understand *why* they're doing it, but it's still painful to see. I read an email this morning from a member of staff within the company I work for and they used speciation, so I gave them a right ear full 😂 in a nice way of course

@@alextomlinson2830 Lmao ye, I was more just speculating on why it happens >w

Yes, when I first started working in IT in the NHS and came across the word "specialty" I assumed it was a typo for "speciality".

Change one letter and you've got the other one.

I JUST left a comment about the word UNIRONIC. Both of those words have to go.

Yes, I often cringe when I hear ‘iconic’ used to mean the best of something. It even gets used to describe unique (in the proper sense!) events. How can something unusual be an icon? Pretty soon ‘iconography’ will mean stuff I like to draw!!

i think "loose" being used instead of "lose" is far more prevalent

And don't forget diva. Nowadays, almost any pop music female singer is at risk of being so labelled.

Neh thats just slang, the same way "cool" is not actually a temperature reference. I think that one has stopped being used anyway, as its going back out of fashion

@@patrickscannell6370 I get your point, but ‘cool’ isn’t a good example. ‘Cool’ has two common and understood meanings, it’s just reliant on context to determine which. If someone said, “is quite cool out today”, you’ll know that it’s a reference to temperature. Another context could be, “You must be cold, your hands are cool to the touch.” However if they say, “I met your friend at the party, he was pretty cool!’, you’d know it was used to describe a person’s attitude/personality.

It is no longer a necessary word, because NOT using the word literally, now means that it is literal. You just say what happened if you mean it literally.

We'll have to make another word for literally. Literally in the Old Sense.... Litos? Yeah, that's not in use! Now just get Taylor Swift to use it a few times, and we'll be good!

its not just in English, also in German and other languages. My impression is that 'negative' meanings tend to be more used (as modifier and/or to intensify/superlative something) than 'positive' ones. Like 'terrific beautiful' is more likely than 'beautiful terror(ized)'.

Yeah, I'm not the person who usually gets upset about drift of meanings, but "literally" is my strongly felt exception, because there's not a good word to replace it.

There needs to be a word that isn't as strong as f%#ing, (which I still love, btw, but a little goes a long way) but still gets the job done. Same goes for a smile or laugh emoji.

@@cremsen1 maybe we should all start using “figuratively” to mean “literally”…

@@auntiegravity7713 I’m a fan of “effin’”

Wow that's so interesting!

Electrocute was coined for a specific case, with the intent to slander. But there wasn't a common word for the general case. So, electrocute was used to mean injured by electricity straight away.

Execute is itself often used wrongly, as it should only refer to killing carried out by the state after due legal process.

@@simonbennett9687 The original meaning of "execute" was to put into effect or to carry out a course of action, from Old French executer, from Medieval Latin executare. The word then extended to performing judgment or sentence on someone, and finally to carrying out a death sentence. It's still used for all those purposes.

@@robertfitzjohn4755Exactly. It does not mean ‘murder’.

Well, the kitty on your picture looks pretty mortified. 😄

@@gabor6259 Ha ha! She probably is mortified that I am sharing her awkward family photos in public. However, she did warf up a hairball this morning, which made me pretty horrified!!! 😆

Well, it's a little more nuanced than that. "Mortification" is also used to refer to ascetic self-denial and the deadening of bodily tissues, and comes from a fairly predictable root given the prefix; to be mortified is, figuratively speaking, to die inside, or at least feel like it. There is a distinct element of horror and physicality to mortification which isn't implied in mere embarrassment or even shame.

Ah, it's somewhat a relief that this isn't only happening in my social circles! One of my close friends uses this a lot but it makes me internally cringe every time.

@@ConvincingPeople Sure, but I feel pretty sure that that most people don't know that. I think that "mortified" has lost that nuance in common parlance over the years, and many people now seem to think that the main emotion implied is terror or fear, rather than embarrassment or humiliation. I think you're right that the "mort" prefix is what may have started the confusion!

I don't know why they call it an air fryer when it's a personal fan oven.

Yes, there's a paws button...

@@SP-ki5gn Literally?

🤣

@@SP-ki5gn That would be purrfect if it had.

I’ve never actually heard “itch” used that way, however . . . If I did, it would probably bother me just as much as it does you. 😅

itching is the sensation of requiring scratching to relieve said sensation - lol

The way I think of it when people say that is that they're scratching their itch, thereby making it itchier, and are thus itching their itch lol

@@user-Aaron- You just made my eyeball twitchy... So what's it like being the literal devil? Lol

@@hugeuglygorillaz9599 😆

isn't a bad endless loop a vicious *cycle*, not circle? or is vicious cycle an eggcorn?

as I've always understood it, "vicious circle" meant that it was a loop that intensified something negative. like A and B are bad, A leads to B, which in turn leads to greater A which causes greater B and so on. "begging the question" is just a bad term. it isn't very clear what it means, and when it's used correctly, the listener oft will have no idea that they made an assumption. this term just begs to be misunderstood and fairly unproductive. better to just say "you're just making an assumption" instead.

@@CarMedicine Yeah! An eggcorn! Rob we found one! :D

@@khaosklub I think your view of "vicious circle" seems more in line with a "vicious spiral" as the pressure gets more intense as it goes on.

I don't understand why people say "begs the question" so often (or why use of the phrase irritates me so tremendously). Why not just say "raises the question"? The first person I know of who used to do this-and he did it frequently-was Keith Olbermann, the former SportsCenter anchor and former MSNBC host. Almost every time someone says "begs the question," I think to myself, "Damn you, Keith Olbermann!" But maybe he picked it up from someone else. As @khaosklub said, "begging the question" is itself a bad phrase, even if it hadn't been skunked. Unless you already know the meaning, it's indecipherable.

People prefer cognitive dissonance now, much trendier, and not actually the same meaning either.

Also in mathematics, one may use the term uniqueness to mean that something only produces one unique result. For instance uniqueness in Cauchy limits. I guess words also become more precise in their meaning, when you have to make a rigorous definition for something.

Perhaps once the word has been bleached or skunked from common usage, the technical fields will retain what's left of it for themselves. I bet this has happened already for other words...

"Exponentially" is also very important in many fields (like economics, but honestly almost anywhere where numbers matter), but it's misused more often than not.

I think "unique" is an exception in more ways than that, because I don't think it's "misused" in a way that creates any actual confusion. So far as I can tell, people just like to pass on the learned correction that it shouldn't be used with comparatives without necessarily understanding why. There are contexts where you're likely to need to identify (as in a namespace) that something is "unique" in that it possesses at least one distinguishing feature (character), the narrowest sense of the word. But the contexts where someone says that something is "more unique" or "less unique" (e.g. that this jacket, rap album, or discovered potsherd has several or few distinguishing features not seen in others like it) are contexts where it's a given that these things are already unique in the narrowest sense of the word and no one would be trying to specify that. To create the ambiguity required for skunking, I think it'd be unrelated to comparatives, but you'd need to have "unique" being commonly used to exaggerate "rare". I *have* heard that in contexts like "I'm in a unique situation", but I don't think that's common enough to threaten the other senses. (And also, to match the pedants in their hairsplitting about comparatives, most cases of "very unique" quite probably actually intend to emphasize that the unique feature of a thing is particularly notable, I.e. to say that the thing is "notably unique", and the word being misused isn't even the "unique" in the first place.)

Unique in databases is exactly the "unique within certain scope" meaning of the word.

I'm generally willing to give this mistake a pass; if a condition is chronic, there's a reasonable chance that it is also severe

If a condition is both chronic and severe it should be described as both. I have several chronic conditions, but, fortunately, none of them are severe 😄

I would say “inspirational” has been skunked. Yes, it’s meant to be positive, but it has been used so often in a perjorative way, particularly towards the disabled, that it is now a very negative and toxic word. Also “manifest”. A pretty neutral word meaning to make something appear. However, it has been overused in recent times, particularly by the “new age” fraternity, the sort who go in for that “live laugh love” guff and produce “self-help” books that are more wishful thinking than anything factual and realistic, so whenever I see “manifest” or “manifesting” I get a sinking feeling that I will read or hear a load of nonsense.

@@kyokkyuu Actually no. Many chronic conditions - like say mild asthma - are not severe.

@@hannalee5756 I have several chronic conditions. All of them are quite severe, and its a toss up which one will get me :- )

Yes! (Incidentally, when people bring up UFOs and all whether I believe in them, I like to make a joke about how there are lots of things I can't identify and some of them do fly.)

The sound effect in this video is better than the word. Can we just use that as the word?

I don't know if there's a neutral term for when this happens organically but this effect is definitely deliberately evoked to poison the well on certain subjects. Such as labelling an inconvenient topic as a "conspiracy theory" so it's associated with crackpot stuff like the Anunnaki in order to discourage it's discussion

I saw a UFO. It was a plane but I couldn't identify what kind of plane

There's already a word I made up for this: gloffiscate. You nailed the definition.