# Is the use of the word "caveat" increasing, and incorrectly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2017, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886 "2017-02-03T07:20:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/21 "2017-02-03T19:38:54Z")
I don’t know if it’s the exact proper usage, but I’ve always used it as a short hand for “baby cow consumes…”. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/22 "2017-02-03T19:43:43Z")
“Beware” is a so-called “defective” verb. It exists only in the imperative and the infinitive. It can’t be fully conjugated. Many of the auxiliary verbs, like might, and shall, are also defective verbs. Usage shift is responsible for most defective verbs. “Ware” may have had a full conjugation in Old English, or even Early Middle English. But it’s now an archaic word that survives only in the expressions “beware” and “wary.” ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/23 "2017-02-03T20:35:01Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In the original Latin, it’s an verb - specifically, the imperative form If you will allow me this nitpick: it’s not the imperative but the subjunctive - “that he beware”. Singular imperative is “cave” as in the inscription “cave canem” - “beware of the dog”. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/24 "2017-02-03T20:47:26Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > We’ve had threads and threads on this over the years. > > Like so many media words, it goes in and out of fashion. Suddenly everybody’s using it because everybody else is using it. > > It may be enjoying a resurgence in 2017. But that’s far from the first time it became the buzzword of the year. There are reasons to be wary of Google’s Ngram viewer, but it shows reasonably steady usage of “caveat” in books between 1800 and 1960, a steady climb after 1960, and a small drop-off after the turn of the millennium. This is books; not sure if its possible to get figures for online usage. [Link](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=caveat&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccaveat%3B%2Cc0) ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/25 "2017-02-03T20:47:48Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > “Beware” is a so-called “defective” verb. It exists only in the imperative and the infinitive. It can’t be fully conjugated. Billy Connolly incorporated a joke like this in one of his stand-up routines: I was [in Australia] walkin’ along the seashore, as is my wont, and there was a big sign saying “Beware”. So I was bein’ ware… ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/26 "2017-02-03T21:20:39Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > This is books; not sure if its possible to get figures for online usage. [The Corpus of Global Web-Based English](http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/) is a good source for online usage, but it mainly differentiates usage in different countries, not over time. In any case, online usage is only going to exist for the past 20 years or so, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/27 "2017-02-03T22:30:56Z")
But “Caveat Emptor” is the current use !. The sale contract is 100%, the caveat list is empty . an expression with similar meaning to “caveat” is "subject to ". “I am selling this rifle to John, subject to his gun license verifying”. It means the final handing over is off if his gun license isn’t suitable. I had someone saying that “The result is X, subject to police report”. I said … “so how long for police report to be finished”. He said “The result is X.”. So the police report was done… He didn’t pick up that in the idiom the "subject to Y " expression meant that the decision will undergo revision once the currently unknown result Y is known. Which implies Y must be an unknown at the time of speaking. Or he was thinking he was using the expression to describe the situation in the past tense … but there being no past tense form I had no way to know he meant "that was done in the past but its now because of Y … not subject to Y. ---
**Author:** ![ElderSign](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eldersign/32/8263_2.png) [@ElderSign](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElderSign)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/28 "2017-02-03T23:03:08Z")
My buddy started using it years ago thanks to NPR: “Americans Earn More Than Their Parents (With A Caveat), Study Says” “The caveat to this is digital, since the newscasts are also fed into the NPR One app and archived briefly online on the NPR homepage, where they are distinctly not “live.”” Well, like everything else about human behavior, Steve, there are caveats. Now there’s one big caveat. This “hardwired” resistance is true only for natural antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/29 "2017-02-03T23:08:56Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I was born in 1975, and “caveat” has always meant something like “cautionary detail” to me. It’s not a new usage at all, if my memory is to be believed. 1968 and that’s what it’s always meant to me too; a cautionary detail or provision/exception. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/30 "2017-02-03T23:55:44Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > If you will allow me this nitpick: it’s not the imperative but the subjunctive - “that he beware”. Singular imperative is “cave” as in the inscription “cave canem” - “beware of the dog”. I will allow. It’s been a while since I had to conjugate anything. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/31 "2017-02-03T23:59:41Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I will allow. It’s been a while since I had to conjugate anything. And my primary school Latin classes left me equipped to nitpick and not much else. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886/32 "2017-02-04T16:22:06Z")
> [@Shamozzle](#): > > Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed that the word “caveat” is being used with increasing frequency, and it seems that almost everyone is using it incorrectly. > > The word used to be obscure, with almost no one using it. My introduction to it came in school when we studied the Roman Empire and we were introduced to the phrases “Caveat Vendor” and “Caveat Emptor”. I thought it was interesting and remembered the meaning as taught: “Beware”. But hardly anyone ever used it. And that was that. > > Now, I hear someone using it almost every day and they seem to use it to mean “an exception” or “an additional condition”, which seems wrong to me. > > Has anyone else noticed this, and is the word being used incorrectly? ``` One of my greatest personal frustrations in life came, when I read The Professor and the Mad Man, by Simon Winchester. That book made me aware that unfortunately, language, and in particular word meanings, are the most democratic elements of human activity. Dictionaries do not CONTROL the meaning or spelling of words, they only document them, by annotating how people are using and spelling them. ``` What I would suggest you look at, rather than “correct” usage of words like _caveat_, is to look for actual _ **duplicitous** _ usages, as opposed to simple **ignorant/erroneous** usages. The latter tend to make the person’s attempt to express themselves confusing and therefore useless, while the former make them dangerous. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-use-of-the-word-caveat-increasing-and-incorrectly/778886.md?page=1)