4 ms·

Could somebody do the same for “nonplussed”? We have now given that poor poor word two opposite meanings. Currently, I have no idea what somebody means when the

• crazygringo 3y ago
  I will say that word is always confusing, perhaps the #1 example. Because with other classic examples, such as the verb "to table" meaning the opposite thing in the US and UK, you can at least always figure it out from context (if not from the accent, ha). And we know that "inflammable" is never used to mean fireproof. But the two opposite meanings of "nonplussed", there's very often zero contextual indication as to which meaning is intended. And both meanings are used frequently, so it's in this total unresolved limbo state. For me, it's the one word I won't use at all, precisely for this reason. There's simply no way to be properly understood.
• devnullbrain 3y ago
  Worse evolving opposite meanings is a real problem. Another example that became popular this century is 'entitled'. Now it means both 'being entitled to something' and 'wrongly thinking you're entitled to something'. So now a word we don't have a simple alternative for is less useful because it has become ambiguous. It also retroactively makes past uses ambiguous. This has a real cost to communication and the remedy is to enforce style to avoid it happening to other words.