This strikes me as a good example of how nuanced language can be. A native English speaker probably would only use "pathetic" to mean "emotional" if the emotio

This strikes me as a good example of how nuanced language can be. A native English speaker probably would only use "pathetic" to mean "emotional" if the emotions were specifically negative. They also would use pathetic to describe someone experiencing non-emotional suffering such as injury or poverty. Therefore, a native English speaker probably would not use "pathetic" to mean "emotional" in everyday writing. However, I could definitely see someone using it to mean emotional when they were being more poetic. For example, I could see someone calling an essay on the emotional toll of counseling "The Pathetic Class" in order to imply that social workers are a class that society has tasked with confronting negative emotions.