Dieing words

[the-e-dealer]

My Interest in this was sparked by Last Night's Feedback.

Words that are now completely misused. I want educating..

The word that FB discussed was

EPICENTRE. It does not mean the centre of something but if correctly used to describe the epicentre of an earth quake would be describing the point at Ground level where the earth quake has maximum effect.

Any more anyone?

[El Pibe]

Trope

really means: metaphor

incorrectly used as: leitmotif, recurring theme

[El Pibe]

I wonder if the new meaning arose by someone using zoetrope metahorically, i guess that would be ironic.

[El Pibe]

Is there some criteria to this, at what point does misused become meaning changed over time, think 'gay' for instance.

Acronym would be another, it's generally conflated with the hypernym 'initialism'. An acronym is an initialism said as a word, like SCUBA, rather than letters such as CID (See Eye Dee).

[El Pibe]

Brendan

original meaning: boys name derived from gaelic meaning prince

new meaning: "Brendan, doing a" meaning to hog a thread by oneself posting three plus times in a slightly unhinged monologue.

[Loz]

Decimate: Used to mean to kill one tenth (a punishment meted out to misbehaving Roman garrisons). Now means to nearly obliterate.

[*Bob*]

THATCHER

Used to mean putting a straw hat on a house for birds to shit on.

Now it means 'great peacetime leader'.

[steveo]

Enormity instead of scale

[the-e-dealer]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> THATCHER

>

> Used to mean putting a straw hat on a house for

> birds to shit on.

>

> Now it means 'great peacetime leader'.

OR BIRD WITH HAT WHO SHAT ON MINERS.

[Dopamine1979]

'Luke, I am your father'

Sorry have I misunderstood this thread?

[the-e-dealer]

Love it!

How about "What is Dopamine's address and normal route to work?" !

[El Pibe]

Would it be cheeky to nominate 'dying'?

[*Bob*]

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Would it be cheecky to nominate 'dying'?

A touch cheecky, yes

[El Pibe]

bah, ckaught in the ackt

[El Pibe]

beg the question

really means: logical fallacy that gives a proposition's assumed truth as proof of the proposition, see also circular logic.

usually used to mean: '..which demands that the question be asked..'

[edcam]

If it counts then how about people saying "Here, here" instead of the correct "Hear, hear"? In the internet it would seem only a minority get it right.

[Loz]

Or 'tow the line' instead of the correct 'toe the line'.

[the-e-dealer]

Well "I'm not coming out because I'm feeling Anti Social" gets my goat. What you're going to come out smash up toilets and bus stops are you? But really I'm looking for innoccent looking words suffering terible abuse.

[El Pibe]

"I'm looking for innoccent looking words suffering terible abuse"

ckool wet cklowns, ckool wet cklowns......

[El Pibe]

'irregardless' is one that winds me up no end, a pointless conflation of regardless and irrespective, I give it five years before it's in the OED :(

[LondonMix]

Ambivalent means torn rather than indifferent

Enormity is (as already said) is extreme wickedness not large / significant

[El Pibe]

Which neatly brings us back to my question, when does common usage overrule incorrect usage?

All dictionaries now acknowledge the common usage of enormity, there's a quite clear etymological path for one to segue to the other for instance, and I'm already prepared to accept defeat on trope even though that's a very recent import from the states.

Ooh there's another, I'm seeing segway instead of segue a fair bit recently, that really bring on the wet clowns mantra

[the-e-dealer]

After 21 years 6 Months. A guinea of years.

[edcam]

People's incorrect use of "adverse" and "averse" - for example, "I am not adverse to using English incorrectly."

Affect/effect - that's v. irritating.

I also hate people using "text" as the past tense of text. it's "TEXTED"!

[El Pibe]

I dunno, I love the bloody-minded nature of verb irregularity in English. Text appeals to me in that sense.

Maybe tuxt?