Aug 10, 2007 02:00 pm Well, even Jesus had a feed before the 'Last' Supper.
Save yourself from making a vocabulary faux pas
Posted on Aug 10, 2007 01:56 pm
guitar_jim
Czar of Cheese
Member Since: Jun 09, 2004
I always thought that the word penultimate meant "the best of the best" or "the ultimate best". I found out over the weekend that this is not the case. It means "next to last":
www.m-w.com/dictionary/penultimate
I hope that this public service announcement will keep you from embarrassing yourself in the way that I did.
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Aug 10, 2007 02:00 pm Well, even Jesus had a feed before the 'Last' Supper.
Aug 10, 2007 02:02 pm That means that the night before The Last Supper must have been his "penultimate" supper". I wonder if DaVinci ever painted that...
Aug 10, 2007 02:09 pm I think he did.
It had one fat Jesus balancing two skinny ones over his head.
At least i saw that on a documentary once ... Something about a Holy wood bowl?
Aug 10, 2007 05:39 pm i used to think it meant something along the lines of 'the absolute best' too.
but i was wrong! as i discovered one day when i was like 25.
Aug 10, 2007 08:01 pm thats a really bad definition... literally it means 'almost final' or 'nearly ultimate'
Getting 'next to' and 'last' from 'paene' and 'ultima' sounds like something that came from a french monk from the 13th century... those guys could screw up anything...
Aug 11, 2007 06:50 am One of my favorite misuses of a word is "decimate".
Everyone uses it to imply that the object was destroyed beyond normal, wiped out completely. "The platoon was decimated by the withering fire."
It actually means "to kill every tenth man". Roman legions were decimated as punishment by their commanders on occasion. Every tenth soldier would be put to death.
Ten percent losses were not severe where Roman soldiers were concerned.
Another is "irregardless". There is no such word, at least not a proper one. The correct term is "regardless" which means "not taking anything into consideration". "Regardless of all his excuses, he is a jerk."
Aug 11, 2007 07:13 am those are two good ones, gln. though i have to admit that i forgive the misuse of 'decimate.' somehow people seem to get trained on that word, to think that it means total destruction, and i don't think it's peoples' fault, really. it's just subbed into sentences, and we hear it over and over and then make the association over time by having it beat into us. i discovered the real meaning of that word late.
irregardless, though, should be discoverable to peeps, with a little thought. it's like a weird double negative built into the word. so i do not like when peeps use that word, because it contains its own clues as to why it's messed up.
so does decimate, come to think of it (dec=ten) but it doesnt quite jump out in the same way somehow. :(
some pet peeves of mine: when people say 'suppose' instead of 'supposed.' like 'i'm suppose to go there at five.'
and when people say 'the subconscious' or 'my conscious. i really hate these. the word 'mind' needs to come after these! i declare! it's not a rule (see below) but it should be one. you should never say 'my conscious.' 'conscious' is (or was, originally) an adjective (the conscious mind, for example. or 'i am conscious.') subconscious should be treated as one, too. you should never be able to use it as a noun; you should have to put 'mind' after it. but the sad thing is that the dictionary now allows this! because people use it this way. i hate this.
less forgivable than that, even, is when peeps get 'conscience' and 'conscious' mixed up. these mistakes to me are like calling a library a 'liberry' or saying 'artic' when you mean arctic.
Aug 11, 2007 06:20 pm ok, i think some of you have it twisted when thinking about latin translations to modern words...
since we're speaking english, not latin, we should worry about what these words mean in english, not latin. Though these words were derived from latin, meanings change over time. New words are created. Old words disapear. I tire of these people who think language should never change. Languages, and especially English is an evolving beast!
decimate:
www.m-w.com/dictionary/decimate
the third meaning is as most use it. so I don't think anyones using it wrong. Many words have multiple meanings.
Aug 11, 2007 07:52 pm I should probably clarify my last post.
Aug 11, 2007 08:28 pm coolo, word meanings do change with time, but they often change because people got used to using them wrong! and that sometimes sucks. i know of a few bestselling authors who, for some reason, are really bothered by the whole 'decimate' thing. it really gets under the skin. maybe because they care about getting things essentially right!
misuse of decimate doesn't bother me very much. but those other things i mentioned are to me unforgivable.
i hope you're not one of those people who would like to see 'simplified spelling' take root, are you? that's one of the worst ideas ever...
Aug 11, 2007 08:58 pm I feel really supretived about this topic.
I may come across a little gudungered but sometimes it really fromagulates me that there isn't more feelings of wedolonking.
Aug 11, 2007 09:56 pm logomachization is impertinent to the substance of this forum as this is not a proper colloquium.
anywhooo :)
I notices something funny today... all of my dads fishing books spell plural fish as 'fishes' ... I was standing in the boat with a WTF?! look on my face...
being able to interpret the improper use of language is critical to understanding certain aspects of historical documents... especially a document written by french monks in the 13th century... :)
IMO I'm a huge believer in phonetics,... however 'simplified spelling' would be a disaster in a language as complex as modern english... acryonyms would be useless because you couldn't determine of the initial letter is the same with ph and f's and certian separations would disappear... literally... 'God would be god'... so we wuld hav tu cum up wi(eth) a diferant wai tu graed skol chyldryn cause (thorn)e polytikal corectnis of (thorn)e day wuld prevent (thorn)e giftn of god graeds.
Aug 11, 2007 11:41 pm hmmm, i don't know what this simplified spelling thing is all about, but it doesn't sound like a good idea...
supposed to and suppose to when verbally said at normal speech speed sound almost exactly the same, so if you're hearing this it could just be lazy speech. If you're reading it, well, then that's just no good.
i'm not on board with your subconcious issue, though i fully understand what you're saying. I just don't agree that it can't be a noun. It's quirky, but more efficient than my subconciousness...
oh, and from a historical perspective, i'm with you zek, but i'm just saying in modern times it's not necessarily relevant.
conscience vs conscious is a no no. i'm with you on that one.
but i do like to say libarry just like i like to say sammich, for fun. and I also like to make up new words and i'm also big on slang and giving new meanings to old words. I'm a propronent of language evolving to fit the times. Like for decimate, so it takes on a new meaning... if everyone knows what the new meaning is then we've got quality communication happening. I'm using a word and you are understanding what idea I'm imparting when I use that word. That's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned.
Aug 12, 2007 02:03 am my issue with suppose/supposed is this: if you write 'suppose' when you should write 'supposed,' it means that you tend not to read. it's not just a spelling mistake; it's something more than that. it often means that you read so little that you've never noticed this distinction before. because it's impossible to read books and printed material and not realize that there's a 'd' on the end of the word.
so it actually calls a person's knowledge into question.
if someone writes 'suppose,' then just where are they getting their knowledge from? tv? writing is thinking, and books are where arguments are laid out in detail. all the other mediums are--so far--just forms of simplified reporting. you've got to read things to make an argument about a complex topic, to get the knowledge you need, to get all the angles and counterarguments. you've got to research things and see people wrestling with ideas. that happens in books, and in the conversation that's been going on between authors for hundreds of years. so this kind of mistake is one of those red flags to me. there are certain kinds of mistakes which clue you in to a person's lifestyle. if you run into a know-it-all on myspace and he's making elementary grammar mistakes and the 'wrong' kinds of spelling mistakes (many people who read a lot don't spell correctly all the time, but the kinds of errors that type of person makes are different), then you should start thinking about where he's getting all his **** from. if you ask him, i bet you'll find it's from youtube, or from the news, or something he's seen on tv. or wikipedia, just now.
'subconsciousness' would be acceptable, as would 'my subconscious mind,' but i agree that 'subconsciousness' is too unwieldy. nothing wrong with throwing 'mind' in there, though. it's one extra word. if 'my conscious' sounds weird (it totally does) then ya shouldn't be able to get away with 'my subconscious' either. i think, anyway. saying 'my conscious' is like saying 'my happy' and 'my subconscious' hooks into it because the word springs from 'conscious.' if you wouldn't say 'my happy,' you should not be down with 'my conscious' or 'my subconscious.'
but it happened. it's in the dictionary now.
i say sammich myself and i like slang. i'm not trying to stop the evolution of language. i just don't like ignorant mistakes. the metamorphosis of 'decimate' can be traced back to ignorance, so i don't like it. how would you feel if 'liberry' became a real word, simply because people were too disinterested in reading and stopped caring, and where does this all lead? liberry, artic, 'there' instead of 'they're.' etc.
no thanks!
Aug 12, 2007 02:37 am IMO, i find it difficult to read a post when peeps don't capitalize the first word of a sentence, or AT LEAST, the first person pronoun i. all of the text seems to run together. and lets talk about lack of punctuation and using commas wear their should be periods and using to when it should be spelled too and this lazyass abbreviated typing this isnt a text message its a forum you have time to type why dont peeps separate paragraphs anymore LOL
Aug 12, 2007 02:44 am because some people fix this type of stuff all day as their job and get sick of it, and because some of them came of age on the internet before they learned to turn off 'autocaps' in word, and because some of them are drinking!
i feel okay about dropping caps in informal settings, just like i feel fine with coming to your house naked.
i usually take care with punctuation, cuz it's important for understanding. i don't always, but i usually do. paragraphs are hugely important to me! i can't read a block of text. those just shut me down right away. but i don't seem to need caps to read and understand things quickly.
p.s. these peeps are messed up--the simplified spelling society:
www.spellingsociety.org/
Aug 12, 2007 03:01 am Quote:
just like i feel fine with coming to your house naked
Come over any time. Here are the coordinates:
maps.google.com/maps?f=q&...p;z=16&om=1
Aug 12, 2007 05:13 am Hey! That's not far from me.
Still can't get a bus there
Aug 12, 2007 06:31 am herb, i'll be right over (bundles up, for the trip, just for the trip)
Aug 12, 2007 06:58 am well, the most typing i do is hands down done here....and i AM a product of tennessee public education (for what it's worth) but from my understanding, language and 'period vernacular' *i made that up* are in constant ebb and flow.
i don't use proper english when typing 'informally' on a message forum such as this....nor do i when texting friends while driving ยง;oP
each medium has it's requisites, if i were typing my resume, it'd be different.
i post just near at the speed of thought *minus muscle movement and neuron transmit times* so i tent to type things how i hear them in my head...
basically what i'm trying to say is grammar has turned into a whore these days.
Aug 12, 2007 05:42 pm Myself, I can't even imagine writing or typing anything without using proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It is just not in me. Being a designer most of my working life, there was a need to impart to the construction crew exactly what was meant in every callout, note, specification, and dimension. The word "shall" meant "will" and "can" meant "might".
There has been a debate, of sorts, ongoing in the scientific and technical worlds regarding the adoption of an international language. On one side are those who believe that an international language should be open to modification and usage and should allow for colloquialisms to be added or the meanings modified so that anyone, anywhere could use that language.
The other side says that the international language should be strictly monitored and controlled so that every word would mean exactly the same no matter who used it or where.
This all comes down to what your definition of international is and the purpose you will impart on that language. The French all but guarantee that their language could not be modified and that it should be the intrnational dialect.
I see that debate continuing for eternity and don't adhere to the arguments of either side. There is a need for both types of speech standards.
BUT, "supremacist" will never be a proper word, "supremist" will.
Hehehe...
Aug 12, 2007 06:24 pm Remember Esperanto as the universal language? That lasted about 20 minutes or so. Methinks we'll all adopt a common language the day after the U.S. adopts the metric system...
Aug 13, 2007 12:25 am typing, hmmm, sorry Herb, I'm on and off with capitals where they're supposed to be. all due to lazyness...
forty, I agree with you on supposed to and suppose to in the written form. However, you're mini diatribe talking about where people get their knowledge from came off as kinda elitist (not that that's necessarily a bad thing...).
Actually there's another thing i do a lot of in informal settings. kinda, prolly, cuz, etc. These are not real words but bastardizations of real words, yet I type them in the way that I speak...
Aug 13, 2007 12:38 am it sounds elitist, i know. it comes from debating on myspace; i don't judge people if they don't read because i often like those peeps and i'd rather be out doing stuff than reading half the time anyway. but we get into some pretty heavy debates on those forums, and invariably someone will post some argument and get criticized by someone (not by me initially) for grammar and spelling stuff, at which point the person will say that that's no measure of his intelligence, and then--if you can see that the kind of mistakes being made are the kinds that non-readers make--then you wanna sometimes use that against him, just to invalidate his whole argument. because it often means the guy never really explored the issue at all. if he's not reading, he's not researching it, so how can he claim to know what he's talking about? etc.
it's a mean thing to do, but it's possible to do it, and more than half the time it is true. but it's not about judging the peeps. it's about winning pointless arguments when you're really bored :)
Aug 13, 2007 12:43 am i fully agree that if you're not reading you're not getting the full story. and I definitely fully agree that there are a lot of people out there who argue by reciting soundbites. But debating on myspace sounds like a horrid idea, but I've never done it so I shouldn't knock it I guess...
Anyhow, I've made my points, so uh, carry on.
Aug 13, 2007 03:37 am it has its ups and downs. it's a way to waste time.
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