3 ms·

> More likely is that the average person doesn't know what rancid actually means. That's tautologically impossible. A word means exactly what most native speak

> More likely is that the average person doesn't know what rancid actually means. That's tautologically impossible. A word means exactly what most native speakers of the language believe it means. And "rancid" means "smelling or tasting unpleasant as a result of being old and stale" or "rank in taste or smell" or "having an unpleasant smell or taste usually from chemical change or decomposition." https://www.google.com/search?q=define+rancid https://www.google.com/search?q=define+rancid https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/rancid https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/rancid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rancid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rancid If "Americans actually prefer the taste," then it isn't "rancid" in American Standard English.

dabluecaboose 3y ago
>A word means exactly what most native speakers of the language believe it means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification ...except when it doesn't. Is it so hard to understand that words can have different meanings in different circumstances? Context matters, words don't have one universal definition.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- crazygringo 3y ago
  But this is an article intended for general readership, so it should use words as they are understood by general readers, or else point out that it is using a word in a non-general sense. You're right that context matters. Which is precisely why this article is badly and misleadingly written, if the authors are ignoring the context of an average reader. This isn't a food science journal for scientists, after all.
  - dabluecaboose 3y ago
    Fair enough, given the amount of confusion in the comments here it's clear that at the very least they should have explained the difference between rancidity in oils and the colloquial definition.
axioms_End 3y ago
But most English speakers (IFAIK, I'm not native) use rancid as "spoiled" only for a group of produce, like oil or butter that went through rancidification process. So it's more like word rancid has more common meaning (being unpleasant) and more scientific and less commonly used one (went through rancidification).
- torstenvl 3y ago
  Then it's a clickbait title. Communicating badly and then acting smug when misunderstood is not cleverness. https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/

dabluecaboose 3y ago

>A word means exactly what most native speakers of the language believe it means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification ...except when it doesn't. Is it so hard to understand that words can have different meanings in different circumstances? Context matters, words don't have one universal definition.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
crazygringo 3y ago
But this is an article intended for general readership, so it should use words as they are understood by general readers, or else point out that it is using a word in a non-general sense. You're right that context matters. Which is precisely why this article is badly and misleadingly written, if the authors are ignoring the context of an average reader. This isn't a food science journal for scientists, after all.
- dabluecaboose 3y ago
  Fair enough, given the amount of confusion in the comments here it's clear that at the very least they should have explained the difference between rancidity in oils and the colloquial definition.

axioms_End 3y ago

But most English speakers (IFAIK, I'm not native) use rancid as "spoiled" only for a group of produce, like oil or butter that went through rancidification process. So it's more like word rancid has more common meaning (being unpleasant) and more scientific and less commonly used one (went through rancidification).

torstenvl 3y ago
Then it's a clickbait title. Communicating badly and then acting smug when misunderstood is not cleverness. https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/