What's a word you've spent a long time not using right?
Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what "tories" meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it's not usual to use it as short for "territories" as I've used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I'm reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.
More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing "encephalitis" with "hydrocephalus" when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.
I grew up in America and "a bill was tabled" means that a bill was removed from consideration there... while as in Canada it means the precise opposite "a bill was tabled" means it was introduced for debate.
I don't use the term often in common speech, but I was really confused reading political news when I first arrived.
Encephalitis is caused by viral infections. Our immune system usually suppresses said viruses, and HIV takes away the ability to suppress them.
This happens with a lot of illnesses... thrush, Tuberculosis, fungal infections. HIV allows a lot of stuff to have far worse impact than it normally would.
That's not quite the same as HIV causing them... Pedantic maybe, but since we're talking about words meaning things... ;)
I used the term 'pursuant' incorrectly for a long time. I thought it meant something like 'things you do in order to achieve something', like sweeping the floor is pursuant to getting the kitchen clean, vs the correct usage, which is either 'in accordance with', or 'in a manner conformable to'. So a correct usage would be 'sweeping the floor is pursuant to the procedure we set up to clean the kitchen'. Nice word, though. I like it.
Thankfullfy just her and myself in the car, and the first time I used the phrase aloud : I once excitedly exclaimed how I loved my friend's "thunder thighs".
Totally thought it meant powerful thighs, like in nice and physically fit shape.
I happily described a nice coffee shop as "kitschy" to the guy behind the counter and quickly learned from his reaction that it isn't the synonym for "artsy" that I thought it was.
For decades I pronounced albeit like "al-bayt", instead of "all-be-it". I only ever saw it in writing, and never hears anyone say it. Meaning made also so much more sense when I finally heard it being said out loud. Eye opener.
Nothing too big or embarrassing, but for a while I thought "nepotism" just meant the same as "narcissism" when it's actually about favoritism towards one's family.
I used poignant wrong for a long time, when it came to describing memories. I thought it meant the memories were strong, clear sensory ones but it meant sad ones.
Can I submit an expression? "Have the work cut out for you". My thinking was "there was a lot of work, but my boss said I'll have the work cut out for me. Phew, now there's less work after some of it being cut out!"
I lived for the better part of a decade in Vietnam thinking "đại lý" was a loan word from English meaning "daily".
It actually indicates an agent (like a reseller) -- e.g. a lottery ticket seller, news stand, and so on. "Daily" just worked in all those contexts by coincidence.
I also mix up "in stock" (in a warehouse) and "available". So an analogy is I often ask people if they have "a clock in their warehouse" instead of if they "have the time".
Also probably two dozen equally weird things I'm not even aware of. People are pretty chill about it, mostly because the number of people without Vietnamese heritage that speak the language in any capacity, rounds down to zero.
I was obsessed with GTA San Andreas, and that was the big truck in the game, and it was my favorite. I was pronouncing it like "yosa might" for a while until somebody pointed it out, and then I connected the dots
In German we use the English term 'understatement' in some occasions, e.g. 'his dressing style is a clear understatement...'. My brain somehow tied the meaning to something like 'understanding', maybe due to the similarities of both words.
For decades it was clear to me that someone dressing like that were dressed to the point and 'making a clear statement'.
Now that I've checked the real meaning, I'm completely puzzled when and how to use the term and what I've misinterpreted all the years...
Encephalitis (en-sef-uh-LIE-tis) is inflammation of the brain. There are several causes, including viral infection, autoimmune inflammation, bacterial infection, insect bites and others.
Since OP is in the UK, I can pull out “nonplussed.” Current American usage of the word is a lack of surprise or general acceptance. I am nonplussed when news arrives that another politician was caught in a sex scandal. Non-American usage is complete surprise and an inability to act. The Scot was nonplussed when the drunk American vomited noisily on his shoes.
Edit: I am firmly in the “general acceptance” camp and usually have to process for a second or two when someone uses it in its traditional sense.
ages ago, i spent something like half a year thinking there was a word "appericate". it was an odd one, since i only ever saw it in print, and from context it was clear that it meant the same thing as "appreciate", which, oddly enough, i only ever heard in speech.
and then one day i stopped at an "appericate" in a book and re-read it 9 times, very slowly.
Man, I'm learning some weird stuff about British people. I've never heard of encephalitis being associated with HIV or a nonce being any kind of person.
It took me until graduate school to learn that "mortified" is not another word for "scared"/"fearful"
It still looks that way to me what with mort in there!
It also took me a long time to realize that the word "awry", which I read often in books and inferred its meaning, and "ah-rai" were the same thing. I thought awry was pronounced "aw-ree" and it was just a synonym for "ah-rai".
Not a word but I thought the idiom toe the line meant basically the same as push the envelope. As in you're testing the boundaries of something by walking right up to the line and nudging it with your toe to move it further.
Turns out it means pretty much the opposite, essentially the same as fall in line.
I don't use it very often but I misuse the word "Gattaca" on purpose sometimes. In reality it's the title of the 1997 film that's named from the letters G,A,T, and C, referring to guanine, adenin, thymine and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA.
Portuguese ⟨bisonho⟩. I always used it as "needy", "demanding excessive attention" (like a child). Until someone informed me that it was supposed to be "weird".
The word "nauseous" is parallel to "noxious" and means "causing nausea". If you're experiencing nausea, you're nauseated -- the thing that made you nauseated is nauseous.
I mean, homonyms exist, confusing them/not knowing a word has one doesn't make it "wrong". Surely you (e: plural, not having a go at you op lol) could tell tories and Tories apart by context (if not capitalisation)?
Apparently muted? I was using it like a muted yellow, so yellow but it's been faded in some way. They thought I meant like a muted sound on the computer which meant turned off entirely.
Prostate and prostrate are close to each other in my brain and I don't use either much.
Idk, there were a lot of words I apparently used wrong as a kid but it was never explained how. But also if you jump down someone's throat for a definition right there and then I struggle to give one
The word "literally". I know what it means, but I blame this on stereotypical mean girls in coming-of-age teen American movies. Also the word "apo-calypse". I used to say "apoly-capse".