I can't fucking stand them.

It's like the entire populace all at once just makes up a new definition for a word and uses that one instead of the correct one.

One I've been noticing a lot lately is controversy, or controversial. Of course, it means loosely a prolonged public debate, argument, or point of contention. But the way I've seen it used most lately shows that most people seem to think a controversy is just something that's talked about a lot.

2 examples:

1)In a recent celeb rag I saw a picture of Drew Barrymore from a few years back with daisies in her hair. The accompanying article described the flowers as controversial.

2)Right this second as I post Much Music is playing a list of the "50 Most Controversial Videos". None I've seen so far were even remotely controversial, they just happened to be vids people talked about a lot.

Gossip is not controversy!

My housemate told me she wanted to learn how to play the autistic guitar

ZombieKitten said:

lol...i use to know how to play the schizo-synth.

ZombieKitten said:

OMG

Got another one: Artisan.


An artisan is a skilled arts or tradesperson. But what do I see lately? These strange things popping up all over the place labeled "artisan breads", "artisan flowers", "artisan loaves", "artisan art" (seriously!)


This is not just laypeople commiting this verbal offense, I've heard it used in million-dollar ad campaigns too. It's so stupid, because in the context of what they're talking about and trying to sell (usually, but not always, food) it makes no sense. Especially because this label is being aplied willy nilly to pretty much everything made without refined flour or sugar. Just because it's good for you does not make it artisan, especially if it was made in a factory!

ironical..was a word that friend use to describe morrissey lyrics..

ZombieKitten said:

She'll definitely, defintely be a good guitar player. Definitely.

How about "all intensive purposes"?

weepingwall said:

How is that misused? I could see it being quite fitting for certain songs.

Sweeny79 said:

she meant acoustic, I hope.

She also said she had the same thing as me, and I said "what?" "Bulimia!" and I was like WTF
turns out she also had ANAEMIA

meow85 said:

wait..she said it odd..can't really spell it..but..she meant ironic..

weepingwall said:

Ironical is a real word, believe it or not, and entirely fitting for what she meant.

I literally died when I heard that!

I was so funny I literally shit my pants.


ect..

Mars23 said:

I am literally lol

"Conversate" disturbs me. It should be "converse."

And the way many people use "literally" in very much non-literal contexts annoys me also.

Random bugs em a lot. It's used out of context all the time, especially by people my age.

I've seriously heard a sentence like this from one of my sister's friends:

"So I randomly went to the mall today and was randomly walking down the hall when this random guy was yelling at his kids. And I thought, "That's random!"




I wish I was joking.

"Reverse racism" is another one that bugs me.

Most people use it to refer to instances in which a member of an oft-victimized racial minority turns the tables and is, in fact, the racial aggressor toward the majority group. This may be a less commonly seen directionality, but it's still just "racism." Reverse racism, as it were, is racist action/thought/etc. directed toward a member of one's own racial group -- like a Caucasian hating other Caucasians.
[Edited 7/17/07 21:33pm]

Lammastide said:

Good one.

How about when Mary J. Blige and Beyonce use "gots"... as in "gots to be."
I am thinking, with the amount of money these women make, you would think it could buy them a freakin' dictionary!
[Edited 7/17/07 21:37pm]

purpleunderground said:

That's not a misused word, that's just poor grammar.

meow85 said:

my dictionary says "no entrie found. Did you mean? cots dots etc

meow85 said:

I don't care either way -- it annoys the shit out of me. Got is not "gots." And I don't care how ghetto fabulous your ass is...

People also misuse "schizophrenic" too often.

Although its etymology does stem from the Greek for "split mind," that split refers to mental functions that typically work together -- stimuli reception and response; cognition and belief; or formation of thought and the ability to articulate or physically act on it in an organized way, for example. Schizophrenia does not mean a split in personalities such that one person or thing has five or six entities inside of them.

We were talking about sex one day ad this girl said she had an 'Organism" instead of 'Orgasm'.

The entire population of Maine north of Portland thinks "ignorant" is the same word as asshole


"he's just ignorant" gets said all the time

ThirdandFinal said:

Believe me, this one has long since migrated throughout the U.S.

This one's not so much a misuse as a robbing of a word's denotative breadth...

I hate how people from the U.S. are the sole folk referred to as "American." That name, to the extent it supercedes ancestry, should apply to anyone in North or South America. I don't think folk from the U.S. should not be known as Americans, because they are. But the word should perhaps be more generic, with folk from the States known by some more specified name -- Unioners, Statesiders or something.

Lammastide said:

Oh, I have heard it elsewhere, but it is a constantly favorite indult up here.