At 07:26 AM 8/15/2002 +0100, Mike Scott wrote: >Steven Brust <skzb at dreamcafe.com> writes: > > > And it is worth mentioning that some dictionaries are more willing > > accept changes than others. My American Heritage dictionary does not > > agree with Miriam-Webster about what "nauseous" means. Certainly, > > when we insist on the more precise, useful term we are fighting a > > rear-guard action, and are probably doomed. But I consider it a fight > > worth waging anyway. > >I'd have to disagree that the older meaning of "nauseous" is either >more precise or more useful. It seems to me that both meanings are >about equally precise, just different. Uh...that is clearly not the case. There was already a word for the other, "nauseating." Now, if we accept Webster, there is no single word that means what "nauseous" used to mean. Thus our language is now weaker, not stronger. > And if it was more useful in >its older role, it would probably have stayed in it. The argument that it changed therefore it is useful and good will not, I think, stand up to close examination. To take the classic case, most people have now accepted "hopefully" to mean something vaguely like, "I hope," "you should hope," "we hope," and "all right thinking people ought to hope," all rolled into one. It is less precise than any of those, and longer than half of them (what people usually mean is, "I hope" which is shorter). And the older, more useful sense of, "with a hopeful attitude" is now difficult to say. The change has pretty much happened, but I cannot imagine how it could be construed as improving the language. > It's not as if it >filled some linguistic niche which is now vacant -- the concept can be >expressed perfectly well with "nauseating". So, you want to completely swap the two meanings? I suppose that would give us something, but, hitherto, it has not happened. And if it did, it would be really ugly. "How are you today?" "I shouldn't have eaten the dog, because I'm really nauseating." No, I don't think I like that.