This is very dated, IMO. People who know the distinction might use nauseated correctly, as in “I felt nauseated by the roller coaster.” But when have you ever, ever heard someone use nauseous as “nausea inducing?”
“I found that meal quite nauseous. We shall have to execute the cook, dear,” said Colonel Mustard, as he adjusted his monocle.
No, sorry. It’s bullshit. That battle was lost long ago. Also, a lot of Strunk and White is crap, and not even grammarians of the time agreed on what went into their Elements of Style, from what I understand.
It may be dated, but that doesn’t make it wrong. And my reference to Strunk and White was my reflection of being amused by the way they differentiated between the two.
So, IYO it’s dated and IMO it’s a constant source of amusement.
I’m not too uptight about this one, but don’t get me going about “rappel” and “repel” any further.
I’ve tried to swear off being a grammar Nazi, and am doing OK, but for some reason my blood pressure still rises every time someone writes about a hoard of troops attacking (or, less often, a horde of treasure).
Well, now, that depends on a few things, doesn’t it?
One more I just thought of is “begs the question”, with the actual meaning being:
…but the more common, and incorrect usage being “that point raises an additional question”.
Unfortunately, I think that getting people to use this term correctly is also a lost cause. The correct usage can be a bit hard to grasp and difficult to remember, while the incorrect usage seems more like the literal meaning of the phrase.
Just one long one actually. Try holding down the comma key and see what you get.
Some more:
You home in on something, not hone in on it. JK Rowling made this mistake in “The Deathly Hallows”.
An anxious person is on tenterhooks, not tenderhooks.
An oak tree grows from an acorn, not an eggcorn, though eggcorn is the proper term for the word “eggcorn” and many other examples from this thread.
Speaking of eggcorns, there was also a thread here a month or two ago about how catercorner had progressed to cattycorner and then kittycorner (playing on cat).
Looks like your government (probably ours too) is trying to change the meaning of the word narcotic - “When used in a legal context in the US, a narcotic drug is simply one that is totally prohibited, or one that is used in violation of strict governmental regulation, such as PCP or marijuana.” OK… Calling something like crystal meth (pretty sure that’s “totally prohibited” isn’t it?) a “narcotic” is about as far from the original definition as you can get.
I wonder how that works when police ask someone if they have any narcotics in their car. The owner wouldn’t be lying (according to the traditional meaning) if they said “no” even if their trunk was packed solid with packages of coke.
Not saying one or other is wrong, but I have only ever used kittycorner my entire life (I’m 57) and only occasionally heard the other variants (although I see that the Firefox spell check only likes catercorner). So, IMHO it’s not a recent change.
As far as I can tell, the “folk etymology” change of catercorner to cattycorner started almost as soon as catercorner took on the meaning of “diagonally across from” (i.e., way more than 57 years ago). I’m less sure about kittycorner. It seems to me that someone must have been making a joke on the “cat” part of the word, but it caught on and people gradually forgot about it being a joke. I don’t have any evidence to support that theory though.
It seems sure that:
The original word was catercorner
This is still the primary spelling in most (all?) dictionaries
Cattycorner and kittycorner are more popular today
Thanks for mentioning me and myself. Someone’s teacher should have been fired for telling kids it is wrong to use “me” in any context. Leads to “myself” being misused way too much.
Personally I get exasperated when someone talks about exasperating a situation.
Rogue means somebody who is out of control.
Rouge (which is simply the French word for ‘red’) is reddish makeup.
Spy stuff conceals cameras, weapons, etc. in things like powder compacts and lipstick cases. So I guess that makes sense of those “rouge CIA agents” you always hear about.
Well, there was a transsexual who got a vaginoplasty operation, but later changed her mind and transitioned back to male and got a phalloplasty.
