{"id":17893,"date":"2018-07-16T10:43:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T14:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=17893"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:37","slug":"boggled-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boggled-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Boggled by Language Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190425135435\/http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/1007w-A-writer-cares-what-words-mean.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-17894\" src=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181115224429\/http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/1007w-A-writer-cares-what-words-mean-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"language, words, meaning\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Being a writer, I take language: the meanings and flow of words, seriously.\u00a0 Words have power and precise meanings.\u00a0 Effective communication means using words properly.\u00a0 Throwing together a mish-mash of terms or making words up by splicing improper suffixes onto a good word breeds confusion.\u00a0 Even newscasters are trying to sound hyper-intelligent by tossing out big words spliced together using parts of two legitimate words.<\/p>\n<p>But common terms are abused as well.\u00a0 Just now I was asked if my truck runs on diesel gasoline.\u00a0 This was not an either-or question, it was a yes-no question.\u00a0 Diesel fuel and gasoline are two different things.\u00a0 Using them together caused a train crash in the switch yard of my brain and boggled me for a moment.<\/p>\n<p>An acquaintance often used the word &#8220;empowerized&#8221;, a melding of empowered and energized to convey vitality and excitement.\u00a0 But it sent a little shiver up my neck every time I heard it.<\/p>\n<p>A few other language laughables I can think of include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;ll go convertsate with him<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m so flustrated!<\/li>\n<li>That&#8217;s supposably a great new product.<\/li>\n<li>A CEO philanthropist was referred to as a philanthropreneur by a news anchor.<\/li>\n<li>Sorry, I\u2019m not sure where I am.\u00a0 I need to get orientated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I could go on, but you get the idea.\u00a0 And this doesn&#8217;t even get into words like irregardless.\u00a0 Regardless means without regard.\u00a0 Sticking the &#8220;ir&#8221; on the front makes it mean &#8220;not without regard&#8221; which is the opposite of what they&#8217;re trying to say.\u00a0 There are SO many of these in common use today that I could go on all day.\u00a0 But I&#8217;ll spare you that.<\/p>\n<p>Now to be fair, the English language that we have today was made up by sticking bits of words from many other languages together.\u00a0 And it evolves as each generation rises up and squishes it into their own mold of preferred expression.\u00a0 So I may have no right at all to complain about younger people making up or twisting words into new meanings.\u00a0 Maybe I&#8217;m just getting old and cranky.\u00a0 Maybe I should just suckupicate and deal with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being a writer, I take language: the meanings and flow of words, seriously.&nbsp; Words have power and precise meanings.&nbsp; Effective communication means using words properly.&nbsp; Throwing together a mish-mash of terms or making words up by splicing improper suffixes onto a good word breeds confusion.&nbsp; Even newscasters are trying to sound hyper-intelligent by tossing out &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boggled-language\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Boggled by Language Abuse&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-17893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-communication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21315,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893\/revisions\/21315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}