Moot - for ages I thought it meant something was no longer of any consequence, i.e. “that’s a moot point because it pertains to last week” in the same way that you’d say something is academic. Apparently this is a common misuse of the term.
Actually no. The word inflammable means flammable.
Wait - what??? Well I’ll be damned…
Yes you are correct I extrapolated to an incorrect degree. ( although its the way I tend to think of it)
I meant to describe a positive emotion (sanguine) with my tendency to think it should describe a neutral or even negative response.
See it still continues to confuse me!!
“Flammable” isn’t really a separate word from “inflammable,” but rather a simplification of it (albeit a moderately longstanding one) for people who didn’t understand that the “in-” in this case was akin to “en-” (meaning in, as in “enthrall”) rather than “un-” (meaning not). Think of “inflamed” and “enflamed,” which are really the same word but tend to have different connotative usages (physical/body tissues and mental/passions, respectively), and which mean hot, not the reverse.
It also appears to be the dictionary definition–an issue which may be open to considerable debate, but which has little practical significance either way.
What do you say “moot” means?
spark, please don’t tell me you’re the only one on the SDMB who doesn’t watch “The Simpsons.”
Uh… I certainly have watched The Simpsons. I watched the original broadcast of the very first episode, in fact (already a Groening fan) and many since.
[googling]
Ah. “Trilogy of Error.” So, I guess msmith was making a joke.
Well, maybe it’s cliché, but some people really are confused by that one.
Same.
Several posts mention how something sounds like it should mean something else. This reminds me of a great book by Roy Blount Jr called Alphabet Juice. It’s basically a series of musings on words in which one connecting thread is how “sonicky” a word is. In other words, the word “somehow sensuously evokes the essence of the word.” Specific examples he calls out include nausea, zest, rickety, and sluggish. I don’t have any examples of words he considers a poor fit for their meaning, but some of the words mentioned above such as crepuscular would fit.
It’s a funny and very interesting book for anyone interested in words.
For those of us without TV, which is the Simpsons joke? Inflammable or moot?
Working for years in retail the only use of the word “DEMO” I knew was for demonstration models or floor models. “It’s discontinued, would you like to buy the DEMO?”
So when I had a contractor come out to give me an estimate on a bathroom remodel I had no idea what he was talking about when he referred to the “DEMO” cost. Demonstration model? WTF? Does he have to test demonstrate certain materials before the install? Build a demo mock-up?
My wife later told me “Uh, that means Demolition dear.” :smack:
I also came in to post “dearth.”
Dr. Nick Riviera tells a patient not to worry when a firecracker crashes into a can marked “inflammable.” Cut to the building burning down and he says “Inflammable means flammable? What a country!” Tried to find a video clip, as the show is much funnier than my crappy description, but I’m no good at the internet.
Well, if you subscribe to the old “Four Temperaments” theory, someone who’s cool and calm would be phlegmatic, which is completely different from sanguine (upbeat, extroverted, talkative).
Here’s mine: My mind keeps wanting to give “bemused” a similar meaning to “amused.”
Huh.
So to really confuse things, you could start taking about the anti-penultimate something or another.
Of course most people wouldn’t understand that what you’re really saying is antepenultimate.
Not a matter of opposites, but a similar misunderstanding exists for “epicenter.”
It does not mean either center or origin, and almost all usages that don’t involve earthquakes are mistaken.
For me, the word is “condone”. Seems like it should mean forbid. It don’t.
It’s one of those evolving language things. While the official definition of nonplussed is still bewildered/confused, the unperturbed/unimpressed definition often makes in into references as a secondary common use definition.
I’m usually on the anti-change side of language debates but nonplussed has always evoked a “meh, whatever” from me rather than describing confusion or vexation.
Spendthrift drives me bonkers, I know what it means but I cannot bear to use it. 