OK, I understand that prescriptivist grammarians are fighting a losing battle and should not really fight that battle at all. Me and my friends are not axing for who the prescriptivist bell tolls for – it tolls for my friends and I.
Be that as it may, what can be done about words like nonplussed and bemused? They are words where it’s usually difficult to get the meaning from the context, and whose meaning is changing right now, as I write this (well, has been changing and will continue to change). Nonplussed used to mean “to put at a loss as to what to think, say, or do; bewilder”, but is beginning to mean “unimpressed”. Aside: let’s face it, it really seems like it should mean “unimpressed”.
How would you figure that out from the context? “She walked into the room with the duck on her head. He was nonplussed.” You can’t!
Similarly, bemused used to mean “to cause to be bewildered, confuse” or “to cause to be engrossed in thought”, but now it’s starting to mean “amused”, or maybe “wryly amused”. “He was bemused when she walked into the room with a duck on her head” – what does it mean?
Fulsome – that’s even worse! Does it mean “excessive or insincere”, as in “he gave her fulsome praise”? Or, does it mean full, rich, or abundant, as in “he gave her fulsome praise”? Now, people are also starting to use it as a pseudo-intellectual way of saying “full” – “we need to give this problem a fulsome review.” Ack!
Is there a word for words whose meaning is changing, thereby making them totally useless? What started me on this lame rant was a stupid novel I just read by Clive Cussler (I do not recommend this book), he kept using “bemused” in the “wryly amused” sense (I think! It’s hard to tell from context) and it was driving me batty.
(Anyway, don’t get me started on words like bi-weekly or bi-monthly, which could mean “twice per…” or “every two…” – talk about worthless!)
OK, I feel better now.
(BTW, should this have been here or MPSIMS? I usually lurk at CCC, GD or the BBQ pit, so I don’t know these other boards that well)
