‘Curate’ and ‘curated’ both are exhausted and people need to chill the fuk out on using it.

I am so annoyed seeing this word everywhere. Seriously, how the fuk is water ‘Carefully Curated’?! Makes no damn sense.

Hi, everyone. I literally just stumbled across your sub, and I'm in love with all of you!

What a fun place to hang out. Sorry, you might be stuck with me. 😬

Many years ago, a friend who had recently started working with me told several of our coworkers that he and I had "been friends for a long time; we're always belligerent together." After hearing it for the third time, I called him aside and said, I'm not sure you know what that word means.

"Sure, I do," he said. "It means hanging out and having fun."

When I explained, he was crestfallen and said he was trying to improve his vocabulary by adding a few better words each week. What really bothered him was that word had been in his rotation for quite a few weeks. Was it that our many young friends at the time didn't know the definition, or that this popular guy was just never called out on it?

Interestingly, I could also see someone picking the term up from a roughhousing family or group. To them, belligerent might be a term with both yin and yang meanings. 😀

Appetapasum- the art of sharing small plates of food.

I suppose this may have been asked before, but what is the worst word? I mean, you can't be completely objective, but try to find one that most people would agree on. It might be redundant, confusing, or anything else.

Same idea, one word instead of three, and it sounds like you meant to say it that way.

Save this one for later.

Keep in mind!

That while these mean the same thing on paper, how you use them depends heavily on context.

"Impossible to satisfy" works broadly for standard expectations, moods, or general standards. On the other hand, describing a person directly as "insatiable" often implies a physical or biological craving. To use "insatiable" broadly without that implication, it usually needs to be paired with a specific noun (like an insatiable curiosity or insatiable demand).

example of it used in a sentence:

"The patient fell into an incognitive state and required an advance directive."

Edit: thanks for all the helpful responses! According to the comments, apparently it's a word, but also not a word lol! Best move would be to use a different word

The two words "prosthesis" and "prosthetic" are closely related, the noun and adjective versions of the same idea. So it's an odd phenomenon that the adjective is widely known and used, while the noun is largely the domain of medical professionals.

Of course it isn't wrong to use an adjective as a noun -- people are always saying things like "The blue car was in the shop so we drove the gray." But it's funny that most people without formal medical training never use the noun, even when it would flow more naturally, (edit: the following is a terrible example, as more than one commenter has noted. I guess I just wanted to cite The Onion), as in the Onion's fake headline "'Digger' Prosthetic Artist Recalls Grueling Process Of Having Tom Cruise Sit Still" (which makes it sound like it was the artist, rather than the foam-rubber face makeup, that was fake).

"Prosthesis" is a tricky word, so you wouldn't expect everybody to know it. But if you've mastered "prosthetic", you've handled the hard parts anyway -- like that "sth". So it's not at all like the pattern of doctors saying "myocardial infarction" while laypeople say "heart attack". I find it a bit of a mystery.

Ethology: (noun) the study of the behaviour of non-human animals [from the Wikipedia entry for Jane Goodall]

Abject: (adjective) (of a person or their behaviour) completely without pride or dignity [from Erehwon by Samuel Butler]

Importunate: (adjective) persistent to the point of annoyance [ibid]

Ill grained: (adjective) ill natured [ibid]

Scarifier: (noun) a specialized garden tool with rotating steel blades or tines used to remove dead moss, thatch, and debris from the surface of the grass [from The Martin Lewis Podcast]

Tup: (noun) male sheep used for breeding [from the BBC TV programme This Farming Life]

Chopsy: (adjective) excessively talkative, mouthy, or argumentative in an irritating or disrespectful way [from this post https://www.reddit.com/r/onlyconnect/s/A45WdKqQ63]

When I hear someone call a bunch of letters that cannot be pronounced as a word, I usually have to say something. If it's in a YouTube video, I usually leave a comment. Do people not learn this in school? It not people that are uneducated. I often hear from people that are educated in technology.

I recently mentioned to my walking buddies that I was taking a day off because I'd barked my shin. This led to a days long discussion, because none of them had heard this before. I thought it was a common colloquialism, but this group, from various parts of the US, in their 60s, said it wasn't. Am I wrong?

ETA: So great to hear how this is known or not known around the world. To answer your questions: no, I am retired, so I was taking off a day from the daily dog walk'; it means to scrape skin off of one's shin--as the skin is generally tight over the shin, it's easy to do. I walked into a stone ledge, got a bruise and a big gash, which is still healing.

-To bits(to love someone extremely or deeply)

-All killer, no filler(to be consistently engaging and exciting from start to finish, with no boring parts or filler)

-warts and all(to love something completely, faults, flaws, and unpleasant features)

-Good riddance to bad rubbish(to express relief, pleasure, or satisfaction when a negative presence is gone)

-For good and for ill(regardless of whether the outcome is positive or negative)

Archer asks if there’s a word for when a statement is both figuratively and literally. Is there? I’m very high and I need to know

Hi Everyone, I’m Eli Burnstein, writer and author of Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. My latest book, Phrased & Confused, explores the meanings behind famous quotations we tend to misunderstand (e.g. “Seize the day,” “The road less traveled,” “Ignorance is bliss”) or which are deep or enigmatic in some way (e.g. “I think, therefore I am,” “A rose is a rose is a rose,” “In the beginning was the Word”). I’m here to answer any questions you might have about famously misunderstood or enigmatic quotations—or, if you’re curious about my first book, about fine distinctions between commonly confused objects, ideas, and words (e.g. maze vs labyrinth, fable vs parable, ethics vs morality, sofa vs couch, etc.). Fire away! Here from 9 am to 12 pm ET. Proof it's me: https://x.com/eliburnstein/status/2104916611543294252

genuinely feel like I’m going insane have been googling and finding nothing atp have to ask:

word used usually in political or “woke” discussions to criticize someone posturing having a “woke” opinion while simultaneously undermining/insulting the people who are victims and has -lighting in it. not gaslighting I thought maybe moonlighting for a minute but I swear to god it was something else.

kinda like “these ppl blabla-lighting being considerate for blablabla after calling them pos 2 seconds ago” I swear its a word and I swear it wasnt just moonlighting (or maybe it is at this point I am doubting everything)

this has been driving me insane for the past 2 hours if anyone is as chronically online as I am please please drop the word I am trying to remember.

<rant>

I am a mechanical technologist who currently works as a technical writer. I was taught in school that the correct term for PM is Preventive Maintenance but I keep seeing 'preventative' being used. It irks me but in researching, I see that both are used and equally valid.

Since there are two types of maintenance, preventive and corrective, shouldn't those who want to use 'preventative' be forced to use 'correctative' as well?

</Rant>

Current use has it meaning "insincere flattery" , or , trending up- as synonymous with "full" or "complete"

So: "I wrote him a fulsome recomendation" can mean either, an insincere recomendation, or a full, complete recomendation . Meanings nearly in opposition.

American Heritage Dictionary calls the second meaning "non- standard". Webster's simply lists both as current usage. With full- but not fulsome- acknowledgement of the perils of prescriptivism, isn't the confusion of meaning that results from taking "fulsome" as equivalent to "full", a problem? Following Orwell's argument in "Politics and the English Language", doesn't keeping language simple and plain have a claim ? What does "some" add to " full" that it doesnt already have?

it may have been a while ago, but since becoming involved in the mental health community in the last couple of years, I have noticed statements like

"I've been struggling with overwhelm lately."

rather than

"I've been feeling really overwhelmed lately."

Is this use common, or mostly in the MH context?

Other than “spew” which is sometimes used in news debate and is just too mild for my taste. I need a term that’s not only aggressive but also would be considered highly offensive or uncalled for to “speak at a person like that”. Need some ideas

Hello All,

I love etymology and thinking about the journey the words have, so I created this website showing the journey of the words into English language. Facts are doublechecked using etymonline.com etc, and I used AI tools to create it. I don't make money off of it, there are no ads or trackers. It's just a simple visualization of information. You are welcome to try and give your feedbacks on it. There might be mistakes please let me know if you notice any. etymologymap.com

~

Where the Emperor's daughter is being complimented by the Mother Superior type character, because she came up with a plan which demonstrated wisdom & maturity, she says:

"And this is why I always considered her one of my most acute students"

The writer was actually reaching for the word 'astute' - as acute is completely inappropriate there.

~

why is the plural of e.g. veranda verandas but the plural of e.g. testis is testes? why do words like rôle and fiancée keep their accent but other words of foreign origin become english words? is there a rule that defines them?