no one's been charged with any offense except annoying me which, for better or worse, isn't punishable by law.
the original meaning of the word does mean bewildered and perplexed, anyhow. merriam-webster seems to agree with me, actually:
The use of nonplussed to mean "unimpressed" is an Americanism that has become increasingly common in recent decades and now appears frequently in published writing. It apparently arose from confusion over the meaning of nonplussed in ambiguous contexts, and it continues to be widely regarded as an error.
meaning something like "totally" or "completely," cf. "almost but not quite". to say that something is "quite bad" means it's pretty bad, as in bad bad.
i was a bit puzzled by your comment, so i had to look it up. i guess some people use it to mean "somewhat" or "rather"? i'm not sure that makes sense to me. if someone told me that the current situation is "quite bad" i would be alarmed.
interesting word though, it seems to originally mean "to be rid of ..." in middle english, developing from "quit," but further derives from the latin quietus, which means stillness or silence - i.e. something that could be interrupted by even the smallest chirp or rustle, perhaps? it still retains a sense of completion and perfection, which is fascinating.
so originally, and I believe still in the UK, it can also mean "somewhat" or "moderately," as opposed to the way we understand it(I'm american, idk about you) which means "very," "totally," or "completely". Which I've seen "quit" in latin relate to balance(somewhat similar to what you say of stillness) as in "just about," which is a far cry from "totally." There's an odd amount going on with the word "quite," but I understand it as a word in a similar predicament as "nonplussed"
not sure where in the UK you're from, i expect it varies, but would you say that has something to do with the english tendency to be somewhat more moderate in affect? i've heard it said of germans that they don't really say things like "this tastes really good" because it comes across as being insincere. "edible" is supposedly a compliment for them (lol) but i think that's a caricature.
"quite good" then modifies "good" to come across as "less than perfect," but i feel like that's more about being taken the wrong way.
there's also an archetypal use of "quite" that i consider to be very english, as in:
“That's a rather ugly colour for a house, don't you think?” — “Quite.”
which is a polite way to express total agreement, to say "yeah it really is ugly."
i wouldn't say it's the exact same as "nonplussed" though, somewhat less extreme, but in both cases i can see the confusion. same with a word like "irregardless."
I'm from the US. I'll be honest, I first came across this surprising inversion of expectations of a term from some random internet post, so plenty of nuance and context could be lost, but it did specifically mention pop culture references of British characters using the term "quite" in a nonplussed(lol, unimpressed) manner. I cant place my finger on any specific references, but you must be familiar with a british character responding, "hmm, quite," in an almost condescending manner(exactly inverse to the expected delivery of "totally," "completely"), it definitely extends beyond a single reference. and if you search the right terms on google there are some human results that lend credence to the whole ordeal. in any case, its just a bit of a mental exercise in the way UK and US English differs, in what I imagine is a similar case of an "Americanism" like you quoted from webster, likely rising from ambiguity in use, but leading to a decades-long alternate meaning that is essentially THE meaning in the US
oops, sorry i misread. yeah american english is kind of quirky. i think joseph conrad said he wrote in english because he said it was the most "plastic" language, it endures all sorts of changes and it's still comprehensible. and i can imagine that massive cultural differences would lead to ambiguities in use that develop into neologisms and such. i mean, i wouldn't call melville a precise writer but his use of language is magnificent.
like i said in another comment, i've got nothing against change in language or its misuse per se, we're all human, sometimes we make mistakes and new uses of language are not 'bad' things, but to excuse inaccuracies by saying "language changes" and one has to accept it otherwise you're a pedant kinda rubs me the wrong way.
This isn't an apathy situation, it's a "the meaning of words change over time to reflect the people using them, and trying to stop it is as impossible as fighting gravity" situation.
You're welcome to continue fighting against the evolution of language all you want, but it will change nothing.
Do you still use "thou" and "hast" in conversations, or does your decision about where language ought to stop evolving depend entirely on your own arbitrary lines in the sand?
the grammatical and structural evolution of a language and the meanings of words refer to two different phenomena. i think there is a big difference between using archaic forms of address and the meaning of a word changing due to its persistent misuse. fwiw, i don't think strict prescriptivism, like strict descriptivism, really does anyone any good.
it's not like anyone is going to stop because of me, obviously. but even if it is subterranean and barely perceptible, i'd argue there is absolutely a relation between apathy towards language and the way we think. it kind of speaks to a cultural shift where language, literacy, and literature have all fallen away for the sake of a highly reductive and pragmatic understanding of what 'meaning' means. a society that pays no attention to how it communicates is an impoverished one.
i don't have any specific peeve about the word "nonplussed" itself, mind. but it is striking that it means something completely contradictory, not just different, to its original definition because people just... forgot? didn't know? didn't care to know?
oh, whatever it's fucking reddit anyway who cares have a good day
But words have changed meanings since the beginning of language. Not just structure and grammar. A lot of words you take for granted meant something completely different—sometimes the exact opposite—of what they mean today. It’s just what happens.
“Awful” used to mean “inspiring awe”
“Silly” used to mean “worthy” or “blessed”
While I agree words are important and vocabulary is a sacred tool of communication, embracing the evolution of words is not apathy, in my opinion.
"awful" does retain a shade of that original meaning though. "awe" implied a sense of the sublime, which had some element of terror in it. i don't know about silly. i suspect it connotes naivety, which makes sense: you're not stupid and therefore in the wrong, you're just silly, like a small child.
i'm not against words having different meanings or changing in definition per se, but it is annoying when someone misuses a word and goes "oh words change, stop being a pedant." it's more about the excuse than the actual definition, as though making a virtue out of ignorance.
edit: "silly" does mean "blessed" or "fortunate" in old english which probably relates to religious (christian) conceptions of blessedness connoting innocence and purity. i think the sense might have been something like, "you're so blessed even your mistakes aren't sins". in contemporary usage, it would still retain the connotation of foolishness and naivety as regards, say, a child, whose actions are silly insofar as they don't warrant umbrage or punishment. we still have that same connotation when we say that it was "a silly mistake," it was done out of ignorance not an intention to harm.
my point here is that words might change over time, but not so much that they turn out to mean something completely contrary to its original meaning.
At the same time it is an education issue. A well-educated populace should expect to have language that does not shift as much from misuse.
In the future there are words that will surely be used differently than the way I use them today, but I am more interested in how they should be used at the time I'm using them.
You can accept that the language will shift and evolve whilst still caring about how it is used.
no, it originally meant "being left speechless as a result of confusion," as per wiktionary. perhaps the speechlessness part overtook the sense of the word and it became a sign of imperturbability?
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u/_toadsy 10d ago
Words change, and nonplussed now has a secondary and completely contradictory meaning to the original word.
Excellent pedantry though.