9 Words That Don't Mean What You Think
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The English language is under assault by stupid people who use words they don't understand, and is defended by pompous asses who like to correct those people. We're not sure who to side with. So, here are some words that you'll see used incorrectly on a daily basis, and a helpful guide as to just how big of a dick you'd have to be to correct people on it. We have also included many pictures of these words being read by women with large boobs. Irregardless
Actually means:
This is not a word. Now, we have no problem with making up words (if a particular scent can only be described as "fartalicious," we reserve the right to call it so). The problem with this one is "regardless" already means something isn't worth regard (that's why the "less" is there) so adding the "ir" to it means... it's worth regarding again? Who knows.
Should you care?
Dick Rating:
Peruse
Actually means:
Peruse means "to read with thoroughness or care." If you peruse a book, you leave no page unturned. This makes sense when you consider the Middle English per use, meaning "to wear out or use up." Unfortunately, if you "consider the Middle English" very often when speaking, you're probably not exactly the life of the party.
Should you care?
"What are you doing, Chris?" So, perhaps the best thing is to just lead by example and start using the word correctly yourself. But, this can create its own problems:
"Hey Sharon, What's Chris doing?"
Dick Rating:
Ironic
Actually means:
So, if a porn star moved to Virgin, Utah, that would be ironic. If the same porn star bought a house in Boner Knob, Montana that would not be ironic.
Should you care?
"She always said she wanted to marry a dentist! And then she married Bob, who is a dentist! Isn't that ironic?" "I went on my cigarette break, but there was a No Smoking sign! Isn't that ironic?" "I just pooped in your aquarium! Isn't that ironic?" We have to draw the line somewhere, don't we?
Dick Rating:
Pristine
Actually means:
It's therefore perfectly possible to have a pristine mountain of fossilized brontosaurus shit, but if you were to buff that mountain to a lustrous shine, it would no longer be pristine.
Should you care?
If you use pristine correctly yourself, you probably won't land yourself in too much trouble, unless someone buys your "pristine" house on eBay without realizing that it's an authentic 14th century dung hovel complete with never-been-used plague rats. Dick Rating:
Nonplussed
Actually means:
The misunderstanding would seem to stem from people making semi-educated guesses as to the word's meaning, which kind of sounds like it means "unruffled" or something like that.
Should you care?
"The doctor called about your herpes test. He sounded nonplussed." Then, yeah, it's pretty important that you know what he meant. Either the doc wasn't worried, or the doc was perplexed by the sight of some strand of alien herpes he had never witnessed prior, depending on whether or not your roommate knows how to use the word. Though, if any of your friends actually start using words like "nonplussed" in conversation, regardless of the meaning, they may deserve a good cock punching anyway.
Dick Rating:
Bemused
Actually means:
If you were to say "I was bemused by your dead baby joke," you wouldn't be saying the joke was funny. You'd be saying that you completely failed to understand it. You were following the story up to and including the bit about the trowel, but you'd lost the thread way before the Ku Klux masturbation climax.
Should you care?
Dick Rating:
Enormity
Actually means:
War crimes are enormities. Extra-big bouncy castles are not.
Should you care?
Dick Rating:
Plethora
Actually means:
It's the difference between: "Dude, I am jonesing to go snort a plethora of medicinal-grade barbiturates right now." And ... "Dude, I just snorted a plethora of medicinal-grade barbiturates, and now there are hundreds of terrifying arachnids crawling out of my penis. They all have human lips."
Should you care?
Interestingly, "plethora" once meant "an over-abundance of bodily fluids" so if you heard your doctor say this back in the 1700s, it meant they were about to stick a bunch of leeches on you.
Dick Rating:
Deceptively
Actually means:
Specifically, we're talking about when the word is used with some other adjective. Like if somebody says, "The turd pool is deceptively shallow," does that mean it's deeper than it appears, or not as deep? If you're not sure, don't feel bad. The American Heritage Dictionary asked their word experts and they said they had no fucking idea, either. So ... nobody knows.
Should you care?
If ever there was a case to be made for clarity of language, this is it. If you use it at all, make sure the context makes the meaning totally clear. "My balls are deceptively large," you could say, "because I have just inflated my genitalia with a bicycle pump." What this also means is that technically the usage is never wrong ... or right. If you're the type who just likes to correct people to be a dick, well, this one is a gold mine.
Dick Rating:
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Most of these are awesome and hilarious. However, one of them is wrong. Wrong, and one of my own linguistic pet peeves.
"Peruse" can actually mean *both* to read carefully, and to skim. It is kind of silly, but it is true. The OED has the following to say:
"c. To read through or over; (generally) to read. In later use also: to browse, skim. Also occas. intr.
Modern dictionaries and usage guides, perh. influenced by the word's earlier history in English, have sometimes claimed that the only ‘correct’ usage is in reference to reading closely or thoroughly (cf. senses 4a, 4b). However, peruse has been a broad synonym for read since the 16th cent., encompassing both careful and cursory reading; Johnson defined and used it as such. The implication of leisureliness, cursoriness, or haste is therefore not a recent development, although it is usually found in less formal contexts and is less frequent in earlier use (see quot. 1589 for an early example). The specific sense of browsing or skimming emerged relatively recently, generally in ironic or humorous inversion of the formal sense of thoroughness. Cf. SCAN v. for a similar development and range of senses."
So, yeah, I'd say if you correct somebody on that one, your dick rating is pretty high, on account of being wrong.
Other than that, nice work. Thanks.
If it weren't for the pictures I wouldn't understand the context of the words.
I was bemused by this article. Irregardless of how little time I spent perusing it, I could appreciate the the enormity of work that went into crafting its pristine state. Although I have been nonplussed by other articles on cracked, this one struck me due to the deceptively large plethora of humorous moments. It's ironic because I was just thinking that I hadn't had a good laugh in quite some time.
Thanks for the humor!
@Zelenia
The alternative interpretation of "deceptively shallow" is that the pool looks shallow, but that appearance is a deception and the pool is in fact deep.
In more general terms, does use of the word "deceptively" imply that the adjective following it is a deception, or does it imply that the following adjective is the truth and any contrary information is in fact a deception.
Okay, I'm confuzzled. People are confused by "deceptively"? o.O How? Why? It's meaning is fairly clear to me: in a way that is deceiving or deceptive. Therefore, if a pool is "deceptively shallow", this means that the pool -looks- deeper than it actually is. The sentence states the fact that the pool is shallow...but, deceptively so. Meaning it looks deep. I don't see how it can really make sense thinking of it in opposite terms. o.O
I more or less agree with everything said, but at the same time the majority of the population has been using these words for so long in the wrong context that they've almost become the meanings we've intended them to be, and not the actualy meaning. Irregardless is the only non word listed, but it's used daily by mass amounts of people, and truthfully is fun to say around people who get pissed off when they hear it. Basically, while I agree that nearly everyone of us butcher the english language in some way to an alarming extent, I believe it is something we must do in order to grow. A few hundred years from now if our species is still around, the entire set of laws for the english language, or the language itself could be changed.
Wow. Just..wow.
I wonder if the writers of these articles come back to give the commenters their Dick rating.
s**t I forgot to comment on how much I liked this article! Oh well, here it goes!
Awesome article! I freakin rofld XD I would correct peopleon the usages of a few of those words though...mainly things like "ironic" :/
Looking back, I think I could write an essay on how Americans are no better than anybody else
f****n' a Lamusette! You, my friend, are a complete and total dick. I'm guessing by the tone of your rant, that you happen to be one of those Americans who think that you're better than the rest of the world, just because you happen to be American. Let me pose a question: exactly what makes us better than the rest of the world? Is it the fact that we're Americans? Well what if someone decided to call our country Spangolia, instead? What if we lived in Spangolia? Would we no longer be better than everyone else? We wouldn't be Americans anymore. We would be Spangolians! And if it's not the title of Americans that makes us better, is it geographic location? Because if so, then why did our ancestors kick out all the Native Americans? Because they were living here first, after all. If geographic location makes someone better, we obviously wouldn't be able to do that! And if you try to cite our "rights" that we supposedly have, well I would like to make 2 arguements:
1) Those rights can be taken away for no reason at all, whenever the government feels like it. Don't believe me? Japanese internment camps, 1942.
2) There are many places in the world that experience those exact same freedoms as us. Some places even more. Obviously they are just as good as us.
Lastly, I would like to point out the fact that America is not, in fact, the pioneering place of Democracy. First of all, the last true Democracy the world ever had was in Greece, where every vote did actually count. What we have in place is a Republic. Second, at the time of the Revolutionary War, Britain had already dumbed down their monarchy by a lot. Most of the power at that point lied in their Parliament, which is pretty much the exact same thing as Congress, just with a fancier sounding name. In fact, the Revolutionary War wasn't a rebellion against the oppression of an evil tyrant of a king. It was a rebellion against taxes set by Parliament, and the fact that we thought it was stupid that some one halfway around the world should rule us (which I do think sounds stupid. We should get out of Iraq soon and not do this s**t again).
Yes, I am an American. But I believe in being a human. So lets all stop dicking around, and lets stop getting angry at other people for being born somewhere different than us. Get over it. Grow up. You're an a*****e. Case closed.
-End Rant-
lmao @ "cockulance". I actually tried to find it in the American Heritage Dict. with no avail
Join www.myefusjon.com/buildadream for the opportunity of a lifetime!
In answer to the definition of deceptively, it would have been much wiser to ask someone with prestigious qualifications in England rather than American sources, on the basis that they would have told you that 'deceptively shallow' would confer the status of whatever is shallow being deceptive, therefore, one would expect it to be shallow, and then would, presumably, be suprised to find that it is not.
However, 'all but invincible' can mean 'everything except invincibility' or 'Entirely invincible'. The definition of it is defined by its' usage
Though, all of that pompousity aside, I wasn't aware of pristine's meaning. But when your English teacher uses it through high school to mean the incorrect definition throughout the entirety of my GCSE course... His bad.
... God, I'm sad.
Lamusette-You don't even make any sense! Seriously dude, I tried to find logic in your argument and instead got a massive headache. Did you realize that, at some point while writing that silly comment, you sound like a f*****g moron?
This is a pretty cool article. When people misuse words it kind of causes a misunderstanding in communication, and people can end up speaking to each other, but having two completely different conversations. You never really think about it until that happens, and you're left utterly confused.
...Yeah, it's happened to me a couple times lol
That last definition annoys me!
If something is deceptively shallow, then it is shallow but appears otherwise, hence the deception. This has always been the case and is DEAD simple! This definition was deceptively poor.
Irregardless was originally a Bush-ism but one that sounds so convincing that I managed to get all of my university housemates to use it, just because I had been using it whenever possible as a joke.
The rest of the article does make some good points. Many words that once meant one thing mean something different today. Language evolves but some common mistakes should be rejected (i.e. plenty for plethora, even though this word has already evolved to new meaning according to the article)
Ironic should be retained because when people use the mistaken definition, i.e. "If the porn star bought a house in Boner Knob, Montana. Isn't that Ironic"
What they really mean is "Isn't that Coincidental". There is already a word for that. It's ‘Coincidence’
Yeah, "deceptively" always confuses me. Kind of like "dongtacular." It could mean one thing, or the exact opposite.
It saddens me to see an American generalise the whole British population in one paragraph. I could continue this further and go into alot more detail, but I'm not one to have a debate over the internet.
Lamusette, you're an idiot. You're actually whining about an article advocating correct word usage. I'd make an insult about inferring you not having a problem with an article advocating the opposite, but you'd probably take it at face value and think I'm actually that retarded. In response to the whole anti-British nature of your rant, find me ONE Briton who claims "ownership" of a language (which, being developed by millions of people on a day-to-day basis - including Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans and dozens of other countries including those which have adopted English as an unofficial or second language - can hardly be owned!), refers to the War of Independence as "the war" which they're upset about losing, or has an issue with living on a "tiny" island and I'll find you 10 Americans who only have a basic grasp of literacy. And yes, I am going to assume you're American because, frankly, many of your fellow countrymen (excluding the enlightened Cracked columnists, of course...) haven't exactly done many favours for the American reputation when it comes to rational argument. To your point about literacy 1000 years ago (I'm going to take "old" as medieval"), I'd like you to take a moment and compare levels of literacy at that point in time with now - I'm guessing you've stumbled onto the difference between "legible" and "correct". Just to bitchslap you in the face with that point, for example, a 3 year old's writing, or your post, is legible - mine is correct (or damn near close, for those more pedantic than me out there). In my response to your final comment, I'm slightly worried that you find it an issue that the British people are obsessed with sex. Just because, you know, on a slightly larger scale (I'm talking species-level here - that includes the USA, by the way) sex = good. I've put in legible terms just in case you need help grasping that concept. Also, if you hadn't noticed, sex is awesome. I'd say boobs are too, but there seems to be a rough gender divide on that one... I fully realise you probably won't read this post, but I'd hate to see the impressionable young minds reading this thread actually consider your comment to contain valid points... hang on a second, this is Cracked.com! Who am I kidding!?
Well, it took me about two seconds to figure out that this article was written by a Brit. First, the Brits get very excited about English language rules and actually claim ownership of the language. Because, very simply, they are still royally pissed off that we won the war and live in the USA and they have to live on a tiny island and worry about spelling and grammar. Second, (that's the rule,if there is a "First", there has to be a "second" - see we're not so dumb), now where was I... ah yes, and secondly, not that long ago NO ONE used punctuation. Go to a museum and look at old writing. There will be run-on sentences galore and all kinds of creative spellings and original abbreviations. Yet, IRONICALLY, you will be able to read and understand it! How 'bout that?!? And, finally, I KNEW the author was a Brit because of all the images of boobs. The Brits are completely obsessed with boobs and sex in general. That must be a sign that they are more intelligent.
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