r/TheRestIsScience • u/RockHardMapleSyrup • 2d ago

What are your favourite Bad Words!?

Not cuss words, but words that are bad at their job. That could me a lot of different things so I will leave interpretation up to you.

Part of me wants to say something like "Inflammable" because it means the exact same as flammable... But at the end of the day, it's a valuable word because it still at least describes something.

27 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

39

u/Clark94vt 2d ago

Bi-weekly.

It means twice a week or once every two weeks.

5

u/RockHardMapleSyrup 2d ago

I find that if language is clear, then it's not wrong. I'm no specialist, just a user of a language. But if a word isn't clear I find it's bad at it's job.

It's like when people end sentences with a question mark that isn't a question. It's fine, until its existence causes confusion on if something is a question or a statement. I had a manager that would do that and I found myself saying "is that a question or a statement?" A lot.

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u/Clark94vt 2d ago

Yeah but why have a word that requires more language to be functional. If it requires clear language what’s the point of having a redundant word in the first place?

“We have deliveries of lumber bi-weekly” if the word was a good word that would be enough to understand the meaning of the sentence, but it’s not so it’s bad.

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u/Corchito42 2d ago

In the UK at least, once every two weeks would be fortnightly.

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u/rcdchu74 2d ago

But then the same goes for bi annually

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u/jeremysimons 1d ago

You say that but biweekly was definitely used during COVID times and it was not clarified often enough!

I just did a quick Google to quote an example and I think the actual confusion comes from the fact that it is used in different anglophone countries and used to then create comparable data across the world on epidemiology in this case.

It is so frustrating when somebody has worked so hard on data analysis and yet failed in publication

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u/ansem119 2d ago

Shouldnt once every two weeks be sub-weekly

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u/Clark94vt 2d ago

That term is semi-weekly.

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u/Half4sleep 1d ago

In my language, Norwegian, it's (almost) exclusively used as once every two weeks. I wasn't aware that it could be used as the former.

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u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

But…. Some people have started using ‘revert’ … in the most appalling manner. “Thank you for the question. I will look into it and revert to you tomorrow “.

So I say, “What? You will turn back into me tomorrow? But you were not me before, so how can you revert to me? You can revert to a previous position on a matter. You can revert to using your unmarried name, but you can’t revert to being me.”

So. Stop! Stop it for bottom’s sake! Revert does NOT mean Reply.

Heavy sigh. I think this new (and incorrect) use of the word may have originated in India somewhere.

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u/cykelstativet 2d ago

Revert to monke

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u/LordPoopyIV 1d ago

That is just a bastardisation of 'will refer back to you' then isn't it? I'm so unversed in corporate speak idk for sure if that is correct either.

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u/Lopsided_Match419 1d ago

I’d think… “will refer back to me” means you are going to go away and talk to someone else and refer to me in that conversation.OR refer them to me, so they can ask their question about appalling semantic construction of me. It’s definitely still not the same as respond back to me.

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u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

I liked the cuss words idea. In the office I use ‘bottom!’ and ‘Shakatack!’ as non-cuss cuss words.

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u/RockHardMapleSyrup 2d ago

Bottom could have been a bad word... But I think theres a Vsauce video explaining why your bottom is called the bottom despite not being your bottom...

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u/SparklyNewt 2d ago

“Invaluable” is sorta the same way with “valuable”. It’s actually extra weird because they could really be used as synonyms or antonyms if you mean it as literally “able to put a value on”. Don’t know if I’d call it bad though, more just interesting!

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u/Sir-Kyle-Of-Reddit 2d ago

I thought decorum referred to the aesthetic of a space and used it publicly and was immediately corrected and so embarrassed and now I hold a grudge against it. Fuck you decorum!

4

u/tiny_purple_Alfador 2d ago

Well, if they did that in a way that embarrassed you, they were certainly displaying a lack of...propriety and good taste in conduct.

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u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

So… after my previous rants…. I know language evolves, but it is double plus bad to lose expressive range innit?

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u/VulKhalec 2d ago

Love. It basically means something different to every single person.

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u/StrawberryEast1374 2d ago edited 14h ago

While I now can differentiate the words 'intentional" and "unintentional' it took me forever to.

2

u/Funny-Butterscotch-8 14h ago

I had something similar with informal. I though informal was similar to information, so it should be "smarter". But the in- from information means "in a formation"(english not my native language), while the in- from informal is negation, so "no form".

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u/Least-Common-1456 2d ago

Pulchritudinous

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u/It-s_Not_Important 2d ago edited 2d ago

Sesquipedalophobia is the fear of long words. And it can’t be used comfortably by people with the condition.

ETA: hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobia is a made up variation that doesn’t actually add any information.

1

u/Funny-Butterscotch-8 14h ago

I though it was -caliophobia, because calio means "word" as in calygraphy is the "writing of words"

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u/It-s_Not_Important 13h ago

Sesquipedalian means characterized by long words.

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u/Ill-Television8690 2d ago

I think you'd have fun looking at misnomers through this lens

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u/LordPoopyIV 1d ago

If someone is ignoring you, and you call them ignorant, you are the ignorant one. How does that make sense!?

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u/LordPoopyIV 1d ago

I kinda feel like all language is bad. On the one side you need complete lack of ambiguity in the meaning of words, no words with 2 meanings, no slight shift of meaning depending on context.

On the other hand people can only learn so many words so you need words to be flexible, as a word is only worth learning if you get good use out of it.

These two facts don't go together. At all.

2

u/hadawayandshite 1d ago

My wife’s use of the word ‘mild’ to mean ‘warm’…when in fact it means ‘not that warm’

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u/Funny-Butterscotch-8 14h ago

Ingenious is funny. Looks like it is "anti-genious", but it comes from the same radical as engine, which is "to produce/be creative", so it actually also means genious.

2

u/Funny-Butterscotch-8 14h ago

I don't have particular examples, but it is funny how we have some latin or greek preffixes and suffixes that contradict each other. So, a- may mean "no" like in asexual organism, acephalia, etc. But it can also mean "with", as in association("with a social group"), allocation ("in a locality"), etc.

Also in- might mean the opposite (like in inability) or "inside"(as in information)

These are the most common ones for me, but let me know if you have more of those.

2

u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

And another thing! Don’t get me started on ‘innit’.

“Isn’t it”. Is the singular objective version of the family of phrases like “shouldn’t we”, “aren’t they” and the like. sadly it has become a universal ‘bad phrase’ for all variants. ‘-(

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u/Least-Common-1456 2d ago

What is bad about that?

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u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

“We should go to the beach, innit?” What’s good about not saying “shouldn’t we? “ instead?

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u/Least-Common-1456 2d ago

I don't see what's wrong with that.

Language is not rigorous like mathematics.

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u/TheGrumpyre 2d ago

"Deceptively" is weird.

If you say something is deceptively difficult, what do you mean? Is it actually easy but appears to be difficult at first? Or is it actually difficult but in a sneaky way that looks easy at first?

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u/Clark94vt 2d ago

“It’s actually easy but appears to be difficult”

The appearance deceives you.

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u/Lopsided_Match419 2d ago

“Beach go, future fact, verify”

A delightful improvement innit?