You Keep Using That Word/Very Pedantic

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Zombie: This is a case where the continued wrong use of a word in popular culture has redefined the term. However, using the term zombie to describe any old reanimated corpse is technically wrong. Zombies are supposed to be bodies specifically animated and directed by a supernatural force (as in Voodoo, Hollywood or otherwise). Zombies don't even have to be dead or undead, as drugged Haitian slaves might tell you. Similarly, Ghouls are typically viewed as type of Undead, but in Arabic myth they were actually Jinn believed to have been sired by Iblis that dwelt in graveyards and other uninhabited places. Revenants actually were undead, but they weren't typically held to be specifically brought back, they come back of their own accord, either for some specific purpose (such as to take revenge on their killer) or just to harass their families.
  • Universe: Technically speaking, the "universe" is the totality of everything that exists. If two "universes" are capable of interacting with one another, they're (strictly speaking) part of the same universe. This one is extremely pedantic, particularly if you have a Multiverse (which under the technical definition would be both an oxymoron and a physical impossibility). Turns out 'Universe' is for the entirety of everything, and 'universe' is for the big balls of space and time.
    • This is a case of the word actually changing, at least within the realm of modern cosmology, where the universe is our observable reality, and yet other universes with their own branes, time-space continua and physical laws are predicted to also exist. The conglomeration of absolutely everything is called, simply, The Bulk. But the fact that our own universe is incomprehensibly huge, the need to ponder what is beyond it is rare.
      • Whereas within modern metaphysics, 'world' is used for the totality of all existing things, and 'universe' for universe as in cosmology. This becomes confusing for the uninitiated when talk of possible worlds—ways the totality of stuff might, logically, have been—is combined with talk of multiverse theory within physics as entirely reasonable statements like "Even if our universe is not actually part of a multiverse, there is a possible world close to this one in logical space in which our universe does exist as part of a multiverse" are a bit puzzling, especially for those who use 'the world' and 'Earth' interchangeably.
    • The man who coined the word "multiverse", William James, said that if there was something beyond the universe, it wasn't the universe; it was one of a number of multiverses that were aspects of a greater universe; exactly the opposite of how the words are used now.
  • Dimension: A "dimension" is technically just a set of directions, of which we have three in space (up/down, left/right, and forward/back, relative to the observer). Time was previously believed to be a fourth dimension along the same lines, but is now considered to be something else entirely which is different from, but related to, the other three. However, the word "dimension" is commonly used for an Alternate Universe, in the sense of a place where the physical laws are entirely different from those in a place you could reach by traveling along another spatial dimension. See also: Another Dimension. This is only very slightly less pedantic than "universe".
    • It means rather something more similar to "degree of freedom". If a world has 9 dimensions, I can move a point in 18 directions; if a vector space has 9 dimensions, I can have 9 linear independent vectors. The problem with a word set is that cardinality of set is described by cardinal number (0, 1, 2, ... + various infinities) while there are branches of mathematics when you meet 2.5 dimensional objects.
    • This is actually a contraction for "another set of dimensions". That is, a location which has an up/down, left/right and forward/back, but where those are entirely unrelated to the set of dimensions bearing those directional indicators commonly experienced. You could use "parallel universe" to mean the same thing (but see above). The implication is that physical laws are the same (which they need not be in a multiverse) but the spatial dimensions are unconnected to the ones we experience.
  • Sentient/Sapient: To be sentient is to have the power of perception by the senses. To be sapient is to have or show great wisdom or sound judgment. These words are often used to mean things like simply being capable of intelligence or judgment or used to mean "self-aware", "conscious", or capable of subjective experience.
  • Conscious/self-conscious: "Self-conscious" typically means "unduly conscious that one is observed by others" where "conscious" is taken to mean "immediately aware of". Less commonly, they are both used to mean "self-awareness" and things to that general effect.
  • The word republic is a vague one supposed to mean a political system in which there is a large degree of participation and equality amongst the citizens. A republic is not necessarily a democracy, this is true, but a dictatorship is certainly not a republic, whether it has hereditary rulers or not. Modern political philosophy—such as the word of Phillip Pettit—employs this older use. "'Republic' means not a monarchy'" is a case of people in the 1900s who kept using the word when it didn't mean quite what they thought it meant.
    • A republic is essentially any political system that incorporates any caste-based electoral instrument, regardless on how widespread its use is. One good example is the (First) Republic of Poland called so since the 15th century, when the local councils of noblemen gained an important influence over the king (first a hereditary then an electoral monarch) and the royal court and were essentially ruling their respective lands.
      • And the Soviet-controlled 'satellite countries' were technically republics (there were regular elections, and the countries were ruled by the same instruments of power as in any other republic) but these instruments were warped by e.g. fixing the local party-to-opposition ratio, so that opposition could never overpower the Soviet-backed party. This is why they are often called 'façade republics' or 'controlled republics'.
    • According to Cicero, one of the last consuls of The Roman Republic, a Republic was a combination of the three types of government: aristocracy (via the Senate), democracy (through the Legislative Assemblies and the veto-holding Tribunes), and monarchy (through the Consuls).
    • It certainly doesn't help matters that the original Latin term res publica is best literally translated as "the public thing," where res ("thing") can be just as vague as it is in English.
      • It also doesn't help matters that "dictator" was originally a legitimate office of the Roman republic in times of emergency.
  • Tyrant in the original, ancient Greek meaning, was a single person who ruled over a city through usurpation. It was a value-neutral term, not a pejorative for an evil or oppressive ruler. Many ancient Greek tyrants were actually very well-liked. That said, the negative connotation of 'tyrant' also comes from Ancient Greece: specifically Athens, where the term first showed up, when they had an 'evil tyrant'. It's been negative ever since. Strictly speaking, the meaning was "a ruler whose rule doesn't come from the state's laws" (i.e. synonymous with "usurper"). As such, the name was often used to describe rulers appointed by foreign powers (like in the states conquered by the Persian Empire).
  • Despot (Greek despotēs, meaning "master"; feminine: despoina) was a court title of the Byzantine empire. A despot was given control of a smaller region of the empire, called a despotate. It was only when American revolutionaries said that the British were ruling them like an imperial outpost that "despotism" and "despot" came to be pejorative. Despot was also associated with absolute authority before it became associated with unjust authority.
  • Dictator was originally someone who wielded absolute power in Ancient Rome at the behest of the Senate in times of emergency, and his time in office was restricted to six months, until the next election; you may not have liked the particular dictator in question, but the office itself wasn't a bad thing compared to the emergency under which it arose (and in the Republic, the Romans did not like kings). Only when Caesar became dictator for life did some republicans begin to resent it, and even up to millennia later, in the 19th and early 20th centuries (when democratic ideals were still taking root in much of the Western world), it wasn't necessarily a bad title compared to, say, hereditary absolute monarchy. Essentially, the modern usage of the term focuses on the "taking power and ruling absolutely" part of the definition, ignoring the part about said rule being limited and temporary.
  • Bishonen is only supposed to mean androgynously attractive underaged (specifically, under eighteen) males, with biseinen addressing of-age examples. Of course, outside Japan, very few care about those semantics.
  • The Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church is not just the anointing of the sick with oil. It's a sequence of three rituals: Penance (Confession), then Anointing of the Sick, then Eucharist (Communion); the last is also called Viaticum, "provision for the journey". Additionally, the Anointing isn't limited to being administered to the dying. Which is why it's called Annointing of the Sick, not Annointing of the Dying.
  • Akimbo: The word "akimbo" means bowed or bent, and is most often used for arms bent with hands resting on hips. Perhaps because this pose is often used by two-pistoled gunfighters in media, the word is sometimes mistakenly applied to any situation in which someone has a matched pair of weapons in his hands. The names of the tropes Guns Akimbo and Swords Akimbo feature this mistake. A noted example of the correct meaning is a one-time Freakazoid! villain named Arms Akimbo, whose arms are permanently stuck in place, hands on his hips.
  • Satellite: A "satellite" is any object that orbits around a larger object, such as a planet. Most people think of satellites as the man-made pieces of technology that detect weather and spy on the Russians, but any natural chunk of space rock can be a satellite. Moons, of course, count too, as do planets which orbit a sun. Many people refer to their satellite dishes as simply "the satellite," leading some people to confuse the meaning of the word. Which is why we now have the distinction of "natural satellite" and "artificial satellite".
    • Incidentally, the word originally meant a (human) hanger-on, such as a courtier; Galileo applied it metaphorically to the things that scurry around Jupiter. The application of the word to the smaller members of the Warsaw Pact is perhaps truer to the original than the now-usual sense.
    • The movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman uses "satellite" to mean UFO. It was made around the time that Sputnik was launched, and the screenwriter apparently thought the word meant any object flying in space.
  • A ghetto was originally that part of a city where Jews were allowed to reside. It has expanded to mean any slum that is dominated by a single ethnic group. By the 1950s, the term was mostly used in the US to mean poor black neighborhoods.
    • If you're interested: the word was first used in Venice, apparently about 1516. It may be short for borghetto, a diminutive of borgo (related to English borough and German burg) meaning 'walled city'; but dictionaries say 'origin obscure'.
      • Incidentally Venice has a large segment—separated from the bulk of the city by a wide channel—with the suggestive name Giudecca.
        • That's because it was arguably the original Jewish quarter of the city (I'm not sure about that, though, as Jews were allowed to live in any area of the city before 1516). When it got fashionable among Venetian noble families to build their residence there, the Jews had to be relocated to the location of the present-day Ghetto, where a foundry the name probably came from (Venetian gheto= slag) once stood.
  • Knots: The nautical term for speed is "knots", not "knots per hour" (the term for distance is "nautical miles", not "knots"). "Knots" refers to an arcane method of measuring speed by counting knots in a rope but has since become "one nautical mile per hour". "Knots per hour" is, however, a valid unit for acceleration.
  • Pedophilia is specifically a sexual attraction toward prepubescent children. According to the DSM-IV, it can be exclusive (the person is only attracted to children) or non-exclusive (the person is also attracted to adults or at least post-pubescent children), but it must have been acted on in some way, though not necessarily to the point of molesting a child. Some people would prefer to define the term differently than this—for example, in such a way that only the exclusive form counts. There are also a few who think the word should be pedosexual, and they may have a point (do bibliophiles want to have sex with books?). But regardless of these details, on any reasonable definition:
    • An artist who draws a child in a nonsexual context (for example) is not necessarily a pedophile, no matter what details are included.
    • Someone who is primarily attracted to adults but has sex with prepubescent children is not necessarily a pedophile. Many child molesters don't have a particular attraction to children, but are simply exploiting a vulnerable warm body; analogous phenomena include prison rapes.
      • It is worth noting that in the typology of sexual offenders there are also people who are attracted to children due to their own heavy regression that renders them unable to relate to other adults. They are usually not categorized as pedophiles but as 'regressed child molesters'.
    • Related to the above, there is no such thing as a "convicted pedophile". This isn't Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; you can't be sent to prison just for having certain thoughts. There is, by contrast, most certainly such a thing as a "convicted child molester". Even if such a person is a pedophile (not a given), they were not convicted merely for being one, but for some specific action they took as a result.
    • A sexual preference for pubescent children (around 11–14 years) is not pedophilia, but hebephilia. "Prepubescent" is quite different from merely "under the legal age of consent".
      • You may see the term 'ephebophilia' (sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19) used to make a similar distinction. Interestingly, while such a distinction is usually scoffed at in Internet discussion, it can have an enormous impact on the legal/psychological consideration of specific cases.
    • On a related point, "pederast" refers specifically to a man in a (usually sexually charged) relationship with an adolescent male. Though often incorrectly thought to be an uneducated corruption of "pedophile", "pederast" is actually the older of the two words.
  • The word perverted will refer to anything from child molestation to strange but harmless sexual fantasies, depending on whom you ask. However the definition of a pervert is someone who corrupts or misuses a person or thing; to say a person is perverted is closer to declaring them morally reprehensible than saying they have a sexual disorder. The word originally referred to people opposing religious doctrine, and probably found its current (perverted?) usage in some churches' campaign against homosexuality.
    • And speaking of perversions, the adjective form of the word is "perverse". "Perverted" would be a past-tense verb, e.g. "Jack underwent perversion yesterday. He was perverted. Jack is now perverse." The more broadly applicable -ed form may be due to that being more widely applicable to words that may lack a specific adjective version.
    • And of course, people still talk about someone "perverting the course of justice" in a legal context.
  • On that note, orgy does not necessarily mean a sexual orgy. An orgy comes from ancient Greece, where an orgy was a secret nighttime cultic congregation overseen by an orgiophant (a teacher or revealer of secret rites), which was celebrated with dancing, drunkenness, singing, and so on. Add those things together, and sex probably resulted from excessive booze and celebration. However, an orgy can mean mass consumption of anything; a popular non-sexual orgy is eating. Some use "orgy" in terms of violence.
  • When people hear the word nimrod, they may think of a fool or lunkhead, but the word actually comes from a powerful figure in The Bible and Mesopotamian mythology. Nimrod was such a great hunter that his name became synonymous with hunters (The RAF even named a reconnaissance plane after him). However, when a popular Looney Tunes short featured Bugs Bunny calling Elmer Fudd a "poor little Nimrod", kids assumed that the word was an insult, and the interpretation stuck.
    • It probably wasn't helped by the earlier Felix the Cat antagonist, named Nimrod, who was both a hunter and constantly made a fool by Felix.
    • It's not too far off though. Tradition says Nimrod became so full of himself that he began trying to replace God with himself, and started building the Tower of Babel to challenge him directly. Calling that plan foolish would be an understatement.
  • Similar to the above example: Ever since Dashiell Hammett used Gunsel as a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar, countless crime writers have used it to mean "gunman". Good luck with finding a straight use of the original meaning -- a submissive male homosexual—these days.
  • Transpire formerly meant "breathe", and still does in a scientific context. It has a legitimate second meaning, "to become known". It is now used to mean "happen", but some people react quite strongly to that usage.
  • Matinée means "that which takes up the space of the morning". The current meaning (an event in the afternoon) was an ironic one used by American high society as a way of referring to how they always woke up late.
    • The word is currently used to refer to an event that usually occurs at night (such as a movie showing) instead happening in the the morning OR (by extension) early afternoon.
  • Item is Latin for "as well as"; the fact that it ended up preceding each object in a list gave it its modern usage.
  • When it comes to intelligence tests, people use expressions such as measuring IQ. But that's a bit like saying that you're measuring the miles per hour of a car. You're not measuring its miles per hour, you're measuring its speed, and miles per hour is simply the unit. Likewise, IQ is a unit used to measure a person's g-factor, the theoretical construct for intelligence.
    • IQ is in and of itself an incorrect term (unless the work happens to take place in the early to mid 20th century); the proper modern term would be IQ Score. IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and was proposed by Stern as a number derived from dividing the age which the individual's knowledge was most common at by the age they actually were. While this score worked fine for children, it was hard to construct valid scores for adults. The modern "IQ Tests" such as the Stanford-Binet actually just centralize the bell curve of scores at 100 with an approximate standard deviation of 15 (Since the scores are derived from statistics, this also means that extremely high IQ scores are often meaningless).
      • Meaningless, because the highest percentile bracket maxes out at 99.99%, and the people who score higher than any 9999 other takers could cover a broad range of IQ scores. Even more meaningless over time because subsequently tested population may adjust the distribution of scores, regardless of how the center of the curve may be maintained.
  • A meteoroid is a solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom. When a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, friction with the air causes it to burn up. The streak of light in the sky this produces is a meteor: the rock itself is never called a meteor. If this streak is very bright, it is called a fireball or bolide (colloquially a shooting star). The solid remnant which hits the ground (or sea) is a meteorite. Sometimes the meteorite is still very hot and melts some of the rock/earth on the Earth's surface; this molten material is knocked away and when it solidifies is called a tektite.
  • An asteroid is a chunk of rock larger than a meteoroid, floating freely in space.
  • The word willy-nilly, universally understood today to mean "haphazardly" or "arbitrarily", originated as a contraction for "will ye or nill ye", roughly meaning "whether you like it or not".
  • Subliminal simply means "Below the threshold of sensation or consciousness": said of states supposed to exist but not strong enough to be recognized.
  • Sycophant is an ancient Greek term for "informer" and "public accuser". They would expose the crimes of others to the authorities and be rewarded with a fee. By the 5th century BC, Aristophanes' comedies point to this having become a profession and practitioners caring little of the truth behind their accusations. Thus it gained the meaning (retained in Greek) of a false accuser, a slanderer. The English meanings of "flatterer", "bootlicker", are only loosely associated with the original meaning, by application to a hanger-on who curries favor with one person by denigrating others.
  • Hierophants were priests in ancient Greece, and Cenobites were (and are) monks living in a monastic community. Nothing like the Hellraiser folk, really. Or the bio-augmented priests of the Machine Orthodoxy. We hope.
  • The word earth means soil. The planet is "Earth".
    • Beautifully lampshaded in Pocahontas: "You can own the Earth, and still, all you'll own is earth, until... (you can paint with all the colors of the wind.)"

"Earth? What a horrible name for a planet! Might as well call it 'Dirt!'" --Jetfire, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

  • A nation is a collective group of people who share a racial or cultural identity. A state is a political entity that controls a geographical area. While the two often coincide, and are used as synonyms (since it became fashionable for the state to rule in the name of the people), there are plenty of places where they don't, such as the UK which has many nations in one state, Ireland, where (arguably) one nation is in two adjoining states, and Africa, where the boundaries of nations and states rarely have anything to do with each other.
  • Being Hispanic and being Spanish aren't the same thing. Hispanic people are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. Hispanics may be white, black, native, Asian, or any combination of the above. Spanish people (aka Spaniards) are from Spain, and only Spain. People may confuse the two terms because Spanish culture has a huge influence on Hispanic culture and is the name of the language commonly spoken by those people in those places, and indeed because many of these regions used to be part of the Spanish Empire, but that's like calling people from the U.S. "English". Not helping the confusion is that Hispanic until recently also sometimes meant 'of Spain', from Hispania, the Roman name for what is now known as the Iberian Peninsula. Which is in Europe, and includes Spain. In truth, neither Spanish or Hispanic have any better geographical accuracy (in fact the Iberian Peninsula, containing Portugal, part of France, and other places that are neither Spanish nor Hispanic as it is understood, is slightly worse) and the use of either of them is because of their connection to the Spanish Empire. This is likely a factor in why "Hispanic" is slowly going out of favor and being replaced by Latino (for males)/Latina (for females) and more country of origin-specific names (e.g. Chicano [for males]/Chicana[for females] for Americans whose predecessors came from Mexico).
    • To further confuse matters, on many job and education applications, it is explicitly stated that "Hispanics may be of any race."
    • It doesn't help that different U.S. government agencies use different definitions—sometimes excluding Spanish people, sometimes not, sometimes including Brazilians and Portuguese, sometimes only Brazilians ...
    • It would be more accurate to say "Hispanic is what people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race, are called in the U.S." People in Latin America don't think of themselves as being "Hispanic" most of the time, although they may acknowledge some degree of shared culture.
  • Conservative should not be used to describe someone who is opposed to change of any sort. That is a reactionary, and such people are actually quite rare nowadays. A conservative merely argues that things should not be changed if it is not absolutely necessary to do so, or that change should come as gradually as possible. Many conservatives in the past have been willing to accept economic reform (and, to a lesser extent, social reform) as long as the cultural norms of civilization itself were left untouched.
    • "Conservative" and "Liberal" have come to mean very different things than when the terms were more or less established in the French revolution; les conservateurs were those opposed to the social ideals of the revolution and wanted to "conserve" the monarchy—and, incidentally, sat on the right wing of the French parliamentary chamber—while les libéraux were those intent on "liberating" the people from monarchic rule. In the past few decades, conservatives have been more about binding personal liberties ("conserving" the social order) while disestablishing the state ("liberating" people—in theory, anyway—from rulership), while the liberal side of the equation seems to maintain its intent to open up social freedoms while maintaining (or even increasing) the role of the state. This is then the problem with defining a multi-dimensional question on a simple left/right axis.
      • Classical liberalism, interestingly, is a political philosophy in which the freedom of the individual person is prized over all other ideals—however, the freedom of any individual stops at the point where it begins to infringe upon the freedom of other individuals ("liberal" still has this sense in mainland Europe; in North America "libertarian" is closer, though not quite synonymous). How this intersects with the modern Anglosphere's liberal paradigm, which favors increasing safety regulations (up to and including seat-belt laws), is an interesting question.
  • The original labyrinth (λαβύρινθος) of Greek Mythology was a very complex maze; hence the use of a thread to find the way out. But the term shifted to describe what began as an illustration of the myth: a figure consisting of a twisty but unbranched path, such as appears on the floor of many old churches.
  • Proletarian originally meant "people whose only value to the state is producing offspring." In (Marxian) economics, it means "one who does not own the means of production but labors for one who does, while retaining political liberty." It does not mean "working class" or "blue-collar"—most airline pilots are proletarians; many taxi drivers aren't.
  • If does not mean the same thing as "whether". "Ask your doctor if this drug is right for you," means you should inquire about getting a prescription if you determine that you should.[1] Please, ask your doctor whether this drug is right for you.
  • Whence, thence, and hence, mean, respectively, "from where", "from there", and "from here". Thus, using any of those words with the word "from" is redundant. They were sometimes used with "from", though, but mostly for emphasis, e.g "Where are you from?" or "There is where he's from."
    • However, "from whence" appears in the King James Bible.
      • This phenomenon, which also occurs in the Book of Common Prayer in forms such as the "double plurals" 'seraphims' and 'cherubims', is probably due to the translators' fears that the "correct" language would not be understood by the illiterate masses, and so various slightly odd turns of phrase emerge.
        • In case you were wondering, the potential singular and plural forms are as follows: one seraph/cherub; two seraphs/seraphim/seraphin/cherubs/cherubim/cherubin. Seraphims and cherubims are right out.
  • Mayhem is commonly used to mean chaos and disorder, but the original, and legal, definition is the act of maiming. People misinterpreted the word from phrases like "violence and mayhem", and the definition stuck.
  • Succulent, due to its frequent use in the culinary arts, is often assumed by the layman to mean "tasty," when, in fact, it means "juicy." E.g.: Milkweed is a very succulent plant, but eating it is not recommended. (Unless you're a monarch butterfly. And if you're reading this page, then you're not.[2])
    • There's even an entire botanical clade known as Succulent Plants. They are named so for their ability to retain water in arid conditions.
  • Orthodoxy: While orthodox has taken on the meaning of "traditional", particularly in matters of faith, the term originally meant something more like "right opinion". The word literally derives from the Greek words orthos, meaning "right/correct", and doxa, meaning "opinion/to think/praise". Assumedly, the connotation of "traditional", "established", or "backwards" connotations came relatively recently, as people who self-identified as "orthodox" also tended to reject more modernist predilections towards reform and progressivism. To understand this a little better, think of the East/West schism in Christianity, when there was no forward thinking foil for the "Orthodox" party.
    • Under the original term, "politically correct" would be a type of orthodoxy (whether or not it is the norm in your area): there are certain beliefs that are deemed proper to hold about, say, women; and certain beliefs that are not. Indeed, Holocaust deniers are, under this sense of the word, unorthodox.
  • Accuracy and precision are not the same thing. Accuracy is how close to the target you are, precision is how consistent your shots are. If you shoot at a circular target and all your shots hit the outermost ring, but are grouped very closely together, then you're very precise but not very accurate.
    • The distinction is extremely important in the hard sciences: precision is the specificity of a measurement (in practice, the number of decimal places in the value), while accuracy is the degree to which it is correct. Claiming that a kilogram of iron has a mass of 70.0000000000000000000000000000001 grams is very precise, and not at all accurate.
  • Bestiality is any sex act considered "bestial," including incest or sodomy. Sex with animals specifically is zoophilia.
    • "Sodomy" itself is a very vague term, as it's not exactly clear what the "sin of Sodom" originally was. It's commonly assumed to mean anal sex, but in law, it can mean a variety of purportedly deviant practices.
      • The sin of Sodom was basically that the people refused to respect the angels who were visited. Thus, Sodomy is really being rude to guests, not anything to do with sex per se. Yes the crowd wanted the angels to rape them, but they wanted to demonstrate dominance over the visitors, and refused Lot's daughters when he offered them to the crowd instead.
      • It's accepted by most due to word choices in translation that the crowd wanted to rape the angels. However, the bible states that the crowd wished "to know" the visitors. Sodom at the time had recently recovered from a war where most of it's male population had been decimated (this takes place earlier in the bible). Additionally, Sodom is a remote settlement making the people logically suspicious of outsiders (why would you come here and are you spies from our enemies come to finish us off?). It is very likely that the bible meant literally the mob wanted to interrogate the visitors. "To know" is used numerous times throughout the bible and is very seldom used as a euphemism for sex making translations forcing the issue very suspect possibly done to show the hedonistic pagans the translators' moral compass. It should be noted that it is was "accepted" form of humiliating your opponents during this time period by gang raping them (not sure when it wouldn't be humiliating but it apparently happened more often in old testament times than more recently). Later it is said that the town was destroyed because of numerous sins including the abuse/neglect of the old and young (likely war orphans) as well as other vague sins. The point of the story seems to be two-fold: Sacred Hospitality, and an inside joke/rationalization for the Jewish people at the time because at the conclusion of the story Lot's daughters got him drunk and had conceived him two sons that fathered two tribes that were later conquered by the Jews (your tribes were born of incest therefore it's okay that we killed you off in totality). It's also believed the two towns, Sodom and Gomorrah (these were not the only towns destroyed in this act of righteous rage perpetrated by God, just the only two mentioned by name and Sodom was the only one where the scene was shown because of the presence of Lot), were named posthumously. The etymology of Sodom may be the Hebrew word for burned and Gomorrah may be the Hebrew word for ruins.
  • Fantastic, most commonly used to mean "great" or "cool", literally means "the stuff of fantasy." Thus, Mordor is every bit as "fantastic" as Rivendell. Its change from original meaning to the current usage came about the same way as "incredible" and "unbelievable" came to mean something like "amazing". Interestingly enough, the Coolio song "Fantastic Voyage" uses the word in its classical sense.
  • [Word]oholic is frequently misused to describe how you are addicted to [word] (such as being a self-proclaimed rageoholic if you are addicted to rage). If you are a rageoholic, you are addicted to rageohol, not rage.
    • Homer Simpson actually uses this correctly, exclaiming "I'm a Rageoholic! I just can't live without rageohol!", in the episode "I am Furious (Yellow)".
  • A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted between people through communication. The word was coined by Richard Dawkins, and he gave examples of melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs (such as religions[3]), clothing fashion, and the technology of building arches. Therefore, while a funny picture such as longcat is an example of a meme, the word meme does not equate to "a funny picture".
  • Stoicism: was originally a philosophy that held that extreme emotions should be overcome and prevented as a central tenet. It now means the repression of emotions, shorn of other parts of the philosophy. While someone who is stoical may be so because of an emotional disorder, it may just be a way of handling one particular occurrence.
  • Android is something 'man-like', not necessarily a robot. A shop mannequin is an android, so would be a hobbit. In some SF works it means 'humanoid robot', in others 'robot resembling a human', in others yet 'organic Artificial Human'.
    • The proper term for a female man-like robot is gynoid - 'woman-like'. In this sense the words are still used in context of obesity.
  • Destiny was generally defined as an inevitable, unalterable future event. Language has shifted enough such that it is now more generally known, even in many dictionaries, as a generalized word for forthcoming events, making phrases like "changing your destiny" retroactively correct.
    • Doom is another word for 'destiny' or 'fate'. It doesn't have to be bad.
  • To culinary professionals, savory now means containing a particular taste sensation, also known as Umami, created by glutamic acid (popularly known as MSG). It can also mean any food which is particularly spiced or salted, as opposed to sweet. However, the original meaning was that still used by most people - any particularly pleasing meal that makes your mouth water in anticipation. The modern meaning came about because glutamic acid creates a mouth-watering sensation after eating, similar to the anticipation.
  • Decadent is sometimes thought to mean "luxurious". It actually means "falling into an inferior condition," and is nearly synonymous with degenerate. The common conception is perhaps given to us through the image of the "decadently" wealthy in some common ideas and some historical examples, which doesn't refer to a lavish lifestyle that we would expect, but probably the sort of mentality that encourages inbreeding and jealous paranoia.
  • The word awful used to mean "deserving of awe" (i.e. "awe-full"), and was originally a good thing to call something. In modern times, the word "awesome" has suffered the same fate, having the same meaning as "awful" originally did (i.e. something that is deserving of awe, something that people are awed by), but nowadays it is frequently used to mean "cool" or "impressive".
  • Artificial originally meant "full of skilled artifice" (i.e. constructed expertly), rather than just "something constructed by humans in imitation of something natural".
  • The meaning of boat is highly variable. On the Great Lakes, any vessel that floats on the surface of the water is a boat—from the smallest rowboat to the largest thousand-footer. Visiting oceanic vessels are called "salties." Also, in naval use, a boat is any watercraft small enough to be taken aboard a larger ship. The use of "boat" for a submarine—the largest of which are the size of old battleships—comes from the origin of the type: when military submarines started appearing in numbers in the late 1800s, they were classified as "submarine torpedo boats"—i.e. underwater torpedo boats.
    • Related to the submarine example, any ship or craft regardless of size that uses only one weapon or one system is sometimes called a (weapon name) boat. For example, a craft that has nothing but missiles for weapons can be called a missile boat.
  • Mystic and mystical are not the same thing. Mystic means "of hidden or symbolic meaning, especially in religion". Mystical means "of mystics or mysticism". "The mystic crystal ball" is correct, "the mystical crystal ball" is not, unless said crystal ball is used by mystics. Technically mystical also means "having spiritual meaning, value, or symbolism", so the crystal ball could be called "mystical" if it had spiritual value.
  • Eke out. If Jane Austen says "the vicar ekes out a meager living by beekeeping," she doesn't mean he lives on nothing but the pittance that the bees bring him: she means the beekeeping supplements his inadequate stipend. (Eke still occasionally means 'also'.)
  • Strictly speaking extra means "outside of", not "on top of" or "more of it". This is why "extraordinary" makes sense. "Extralegal" means outside the realm of legality (i.e. illegal), not something that is especially legal over and above the usual definition. "Extraterrestrial" (outside of earth; from another planet) is probably most recognizable by the majority of people in its correct meaning thanks to Steven Spielberg's movie.
  • An acronym is an initialism which forms a word, such as "laser" (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), or "amphetamine" (alpha-methyl-phenethylamine).[4] This distinction is commonly ignored; The BBC and The Guardian are just two mainstream media outlets who are happy to use "acronym" as though it were synonymous with "initialism".
  • Due is an adjective, and needs a noun to modify. In the sentence "There is chaos due to misunderstandings," due modifies chaos, not the whole clause there is chaos. Thus, some of us hyper-pedants would prefer that due to not be used in place of because of.
  • Similarly, as such needs a precedent noun. "I am an adult citizen of this republic and as such have the right to vote in its elections": such means such a person, i.e. "an adult citizen". As such is not a fancy synonym for thus or therefore.
  • Shoujo-ai and Shounen-ai are used on the West to mean same-sex romance between girls and boys respectively. Better not use those words on Japan, where they refer to the love of children. Their English equivalent would be "Girl Love" and "Boy Love", which themselves shouldn't be confused with the Gratuitous English terms "Girls Love" and "Boys Love", which the Japanese use to refer to.... Yuri and Yaoi. Yes, this is quite the coincidence.
  • When a person is cremated, what you get back is actually called cremains (as in cremated remains), not ashes. Ashes are the remains of combustable material, cremains are the pulverized bone fragments left over after the cremation. You see, after a body is cremated, all that is left are the bones. All combustible material is completely evaporated. In fact, when you look above a crematory, all you will see is the heat haze. There won't be any smoke because there are no particles to go up into the air. So, cremation urns do not contain "ashes" but cremains.
    • Occasionally, unscrupulous crematoriums may pad cremains with ashes. Indeed, as seen in the Noble, Georgia crematory scandal, some urns were filled with kitty litter or top soil. However, this is not very common, and crematories will gladly allow you to see the facilities, or even witness the cremation yourself. (No, they do not cremate several bodies at once and divy up the remains. That is illegal. You may only cremate one human at a time).
  • An extravaganza is a literary or musical work (often musical theatre) characterized by freedom of style and structure and usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody. It may more broadly refer to an elaborate, spectacular, and expensive theatrical production. It is not a party, however lavish the party may be.
  • People often use the terms First World, Second World and Third World as though they refer specifically to levels of development. This is not quite correct. The terms were originally coined during the Cold War to describe the three main geopolitical alignments of the time—that is to say, America and its allies (the First World), the Communist nations (the Second World) and those aligned with neither (the Third World). Admittedly, the Third World had from the very beginning connotations of low development and high poverty, whilst the eventual triumph of capitalism over communism as an economic system led to (generally) higher standards of living in the First World than in the Second World, but it should be remembered that these factors were coincidental, not definitive; and, arguably, since the end of the Cold War, all three have become defunct, even though they're still used for more euphemistic equivalents of terms like GEDC and LEDC (Greater and Lesser Economically Developed Country respectively).
    • The first usage of the term Third World was a direct reference to the "third state" (tiers état) of France before the revolution, with the idea being that it was a group of countries that had no voice in international decisions concerning them. The author didn't coin the terms "First World" or "Second World" though, given that they would have made little sense in the analogy (Atheist USSR as the religious class??). As such, it does not refer to underdeveloped countries or countries with low standards of living, but states with limited geopolitical clout, and therefore states like Lithuania and Peru fill the bill, whilst Egypt and India do not. Perhaps a case of a changing in meaning over time though.
    • For the uncertain, the currently-favored terminology is "(Global) North" and "(Global) South", with the South being the less-developed countries, and the North being the other thing. It's not a strict division along geographic lines: Australia and South Korea are firmly in the North, while China and North Korea are in the South.
  • Football, despite what some people say, is a perfectly legitimate name for American football, not just the international name for what Americans call soccer. Those sports are not called football because you kick a ball around with your feet, but because they're played on foot (as opposed to, say, polo, which is played on horseback).
    • To elaborate, in the 19th century, kids played their own versions of football however they felt like it. But soon after, there was a call in England for standardizing the rules of Football, which of course led to lots of arguing. In the end the arguers settled on two games: rugby football and association football. Not long after, other organized sports based on these two sports as well as others were formed (Australian Rules Football, American Football, Galic Football, etc.) and all of these "Football" sports have since gained a foothold in sports culture. Of course since there are quite a few sports that claim the name Football many of these arguments continue on to this very day.
    • It also should be mentioned that the British called it soccer first. (No really, it's true.)
  • I could care less. On the surface, it may imply that there is the chance that you really do care, and a more grammatically accurate way to say it is "I couldn't/can't/whatever care less". It could also be, and generally is, used with built in irony, or possibly sarcasm, as if to offer "I could care less if you really wanted me to, but for now I'll just stick with the level of not caring I'm at now."
  • Frozen is technically a synonym for "solidified". It does not have to do with cold. A rock is frozen, unless it is lava. Liquid nitrogen, on the other hand, is not frozen, despite the fact that it is cold. Freezing is the inverse process of melting, so dry ice is not frozen either. It is deposited carbon dioxide. Similarly, boiling just means "vaporized". Air is boiling, unless it is in a dewer. Lava is not. Evaporation refers specifically to vaporization occurring below a substance's boiling point. As boiling is the inverse process of condensation, neither is carbon dioxide. It is sublimated.
  • Lust can colloquially just mean "generic sexual desire," but its classical theological definition is "the vice of excessive sexual act." So, first of all, as a vice, it has to be habitual (i.e. committing adultery on one occasion but never considering it before or after is technically not "lust", but still vicious and qualifies for mortal sin according to the Catholic Church). Secondly, it needs to be excessive, so simply desiring to have sex isn't lust, or even wrong; only if you continually intentionally dwell on sexual thoughts or continually intentionally do sexual acts can it be called "lust." This is further complicated because there's another, more archaic and almost never used sense of the word "lust", which is "to treat human beings as tools without giving them the proper dignity they deserve as humans". This sense of the word "lust" would apply to a man who has sex with a popular woman in order to gain social status; you can think of it as being related in that his sexual drive is perverted (i.e. misused) because he uses sex for something besides reproduction.
  • Meta. Ever since metacrawler the prefix meta- has been used to denote an aggregation (like in metacritic) when it is supposed to be used to denote a definition or something that goes beyond the original intent, e.g. metaphysics goes beyond traditional physics, metadata is data that defines the data, metacrawler is a search engine that crawls the HTML Meta tags on websites that are supposed to be used for defining what content is on your page. If used properly, metacritic would be a site devoted to critiquing the critics or even be a site like tv tropes, not an aggregation of critical reviews.
  • Ego (simply means "I" in Latin), when used alongside terms like "id", is often assumed to be its opposite. In fact, according to Sigmund Freud, the counterpart to "id" (basically, all your instincts and raw desires) is the "super-ego" (the critical, moral part of the mind). The "ego" acts as the mediator between the two, bringing Real Life into the mix. Crossword puzzles appear to be the most likely culprits here. The word "ego" is also often used when "id" would be more appropriate, as in "he's just doing this to satisfy his ego."
  • Nakama means "friend" or "comrade" or "colleague" in Japanese. If you were to stop a random Japanese person on the street of Osaka and asked, "Could you define Nakama for me", the response wouldn't be "a group of friends who are as close as family", or "a group of friends that are closer than family". On the contrary, the response would simply be "friend", with none of the deeper connotations that people here on TV Tropes have ascribed to it. This incorrect use of the term originated in One Piece fandom... and even there, it is only a small percentage of the One Piece fans who insist that Nakama means something more than just "friends".
    • Possibly because the Japanese language has another term that means 'friend', "tomodachi", and English speakers just can't understand having two words that mean the same thing.
      • English has very few true synonyms, which might contribute to this. Policeman and cop, for example, differ in terms of formality. I don't know if that's true of Japanese, but if it's not, that could explain some of the confusion.
      • 'Nakama' and 'tomodachi' are not synonymous. 'Tomodachi' is closer to the English 'friend', referring to someone you consider an equal who is close to you, who you play, talk, etc. with. 'Nakama' is more like 'comrade', referring to someone who works with you in doing something, or is part of the same group. The two words are contrasted with some frequency.
  • Moot comes from the old English word for a meeting, where important issues were discussed. A moot subject was one deserving serious debate, not something of little or no relevance. The current usage comes from a corruption of "mooted"; a "mooted" thing means a debated thing, i.e., a settled thing.
  • Titular means claiming a title while not having any right to it. The word for "being the character or thing a work is named after" is eponymous. You probably meant to say "title character of X", which is equally as valid as "eponymous".
  • A PC is an abbreviation of the term "Personal Computer", not a computer that uses Windows software or hardware. A Macintosh computer, which uses Apple software and hardware is ALSO a PC as it is a Personal Computer. This is not in the least bit helped by the semantically deceptive "Mac vs PC" ad campaigns that promote this misuse.
  • Electricity refers only to a "quantity of electricity", that is, an electric charge. It does not refer to anything which can take the adjective "electric", such as electromagnetic radiation (which is what most people mean when they say "electricity") electric energy, or electronics. It has gotten to the point where physicists no longer use the term "electricity" in scientific publications, because the colloquial usage is ambiguous. (Though they still use "electric" and "electrical" as adjectives.)
  • Chauvinism originally meant extreme patriotism and nationalism, and the belief in one nation's superiority over others. It has since evolved to mean a belief in the superiority of a specific group of people (not necessarily a nation) over other groups. One example of such is male chauvinism, which is probably the most common meaning today. The term is also often confused with sexism, which is prejudice and discrimination based on sex and the belief in traditional gender roles.
  • The word Holocaust has a meaning that comes to mind whenever it is mentioned, and it's not a pleasant one. The original meaning in ancient Greek was "given as burnt offering" or "completely consumed by fire". (Fans of The Princess Bride may remember how a "holocaust cloak" enabled Fezzik to appear as a giant flaming demon without being harmed.) Modern Jews would actually much prefer the word Shoah (שואה), a word meaning "calamity" or "tragedy" in Hebrew), be used for Nazi genocide, as they justifiably consider it mass-murder, rather than sacrifice.
  • Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps: This phrase is frequently used by modern conservative politicians and pundits who claim the lower class are not entitled to extensive government aid; the logic behind it is that they should work harder and more efficiently, an argument often challenged by liberals who claim this is a fallacy made by the upper class to justify austerity out of ignorance regarding how the economy works. Regardless, the phrase used to be synonymous with the trope Impossible Task. (Wear a pair of workboots that have straps, and try to lift yourself upwards by pulling them; it’s impossible.) The phrase is believed to have come from the German author Rudolf Erich Raspe, who wrote about a character who pulled himself out of a swamp by pulling his own hair, almost a Cartoon Physics type logic. In fact, when it became a colloquial phrase referring to socioeconomic advancement shortly thereafter, it was meant to be sarcastic, or to suggest that it was an impossible accomplishment.



  1. ↑ For all you grammarians, yes, there should be a comma after "doctor", but that changes the typical reading of that sentence.
  2. ↑ Unless you're just dreaming about reading the page.
  3. ↑ Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen argue that something as complex as a whole religion isn't just a single meme, but what they call a memeplex
  4. ↑ Note:An initialism does not need to be composed entirely of initials; it can contain word fragments or whole words. See The Other Wiki for more information
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