# I learned a new meaning for the word "bashful"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 15, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979 "2012-05-15T12:19:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Saffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saffer/32/6440_2.png) [@Saffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saffer)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/1 "2012-05-15T12:19:47Z")

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I was talking to a friend the other day and she was describing a work colleague:

Friend: “… and sometimes she can be quite bashful…”

as she said bashful she took he fists and sort of pounded them together, once for each syllable of “bashful”.

Turns out she thought bashful meant something like confrontational. In other words, someone who is bashful, is prone to “bashing heads” or something.

It took a while for me to stop laughing. 😃

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/2 "2012-05-15T13:27:32Z")

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Beautiful! I just plain love it. I suspect this crowd could add many such “twists of meaning” to dozens of other words. I’m going to be trying to think of some to contribute, if you don’t object to what might become a major hijacking of your thread!

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**Author:** ![Saffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saffer/32/6440_2.png) [@Saffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saffer)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/3 "2012-05-15T13:58:53Z")

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> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> Beautiful! I just plain love it. I suspect this crowd could add many such “twists of meaning” to dozens of other words. I’m going to be trying to think of some to contribute, if you don’t object to what might become a major hijacking of your thread!

By all means, please do 🙂

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**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/4 "2012-05-15T14:11:46Z")

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I condone using words incorrectly like that. It’s just foolish.

Condone here means “against” because, well, “con”.

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/5 "2012-05-15T14:21:25Z")

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I rarely use the word “dearth” because I have the misapprehension that it’s a synonym for “wealth” as too many users of that word must do.

Having a dearth of choices really means you’re down to few or none, not like you have buckets of them. (See: [synonyms and antonyms](http://thesaurus.com/browse/dearth))

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**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/6 "2012-05-15T14:33:10Z")

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> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> I rarely use the word “dearth” because I have the misapprehension that it’s a synonym for “wealth” as too many users of that word must do.

Choose lirfe, not dearth.

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**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-learned-a-new-meaning-for-the-word-bashful/621979/7 "2012-05-15T14:35:47Z")

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> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> I condone using words incorrectly like that. It’s just foolish.

That’s awful.