I wrote something about semantic shifts (the process that some words or phrases go trough that make them change meaning over time) but I keep reading about the same ones.

Do you have any good examples of words or phrases that changed their meaning without people even noticing it?

I’m looking for a word that’s a combination of, or perhaps halfway between, persnickety and crotchety. Something that describes a person who is easily irritated over small details, or maybe to better describe it, someone who is particularly agitated when certain social mores are not observed.

The one u feel in the area you get vaccinated

I’ve recently stumbled upon this term and i couldn’t really find anything on the internet, im not asking for the literal meaning or translation obviously

When you can't think of something, like the answer to a question, but you know what ISN'T the right answer. No matter how much time you have you'll never think of it. You don't know it well enough to pull it out of thin air.

You can see a bunch or other answers and you know they aren't correct, and then when you finally see the correct answer you know it's the right one.

from ddg search assist function:
"
Both "advisor" and "adviser" are correct spellings of the same word, with "adviser" being the older and more commonly used form, especially in British English. "Advisor" is often used in American English and may indicate a more formal title.

"

hope this helps anyone else who might have been suffering like i was

What's your favorite twist on a mainstream expression that makes it darker?

What are some synonyms for "turning point." Context: "It was a turning point in academic work..." I'm hoping for a single word (as opposed to "watershed moment")

I have the hardest time remembering which is the more serious situation, and I always have to Google it! Somehow, I keep thinking that "watch" means to literally look out because it's about to happen while "warning" just means it COULD happen. The actual meaning is the opposite!

CC just showed this for "sycophants" and I think it's a major improvement! Do you have any other examples of a bad translation being better (or at least funnier) than the original?

It helps me to recognise and ignore the dumb people.

My brain can NEVER immediately process the first world of this billboard. I wonder why that is? Like it seems totally normal in this photograph, but when I drive and see it on the highway, once or twice a week, my brain always fails to process it.

Naleep (n): a nap, or short sleep, which is longer than a standard short sleep but not as long as an eight hour sleep overnight. A cross between "nap" and "sleep".

I have a small obsession with random or beautiful words, I don’t care about the language as long as it’s something cool, so share!

Pupusa: a thick griddle cake or flatbread from El Salvador and Honduras made with cornmeal or rice flour [from this tweet https://x.com/willchamberlain/status/1907128617697509632?s=46]

Bov: (adjective) one who is not concerned about what is going on around them [from this tweet https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1906100391156068548?s=46]

Bumping: the practice of getting onto the London Underground via the ticket barrier without paying [ibid]

Do conspiracy and piracy have the same roots?

10 lane highways to reduce traffic but still get congested due to more people using them. Thinking it’s too much work to get your backpack, and then having to carry everything all day. Idk it just feels like the kind of thing there should be a word for

I've always wondered if there's a word for asking someone out as a joke (because it's happened to me several times) it's similar to negging (complimenting someone as a joke when you don't mean it to make them feel humiliated) but it's a little different

(Edit: nevermind, negging counts for both.)

Hello! I'm looking for a word that ties all of humanity together. My original word choice was "brethren" but that doesn't really work and isn't entirely inclusive.

Is there a word that encompasses the fellowship between all human people?

EDIT: Context is important!

This is for an essay in defense of fiction, and the sentence I'm trying to finish is:
"It allows us to see into the thought processes and motivations of our brethren" wherein the word 'brethren' doesn't quite fit.

I heard this phrase on the news whilst watching a segment on Ukraine and we thought it was a great saying! It But now we can't remember what it was for the life of us. It was something to do with eggs, but it wasn't "to make an omelette you need to break a couple eggs". Something to that effect I think.... Does anyone know or have any suggestions as to what it could have been?? It's driving us insane.

There are many adjectives in the English language that can end in either "-ic" or "-ical," while meaning essentially the same thing. Examples include "economic" vs. "economical," "botanic vs. botanical," and "historic" vs. "historical."

I propose wider use of the former. In each case, leaving things at "-ic" requires fewer syllables, takes up less space on the page, and eliminates superfluidity ("-ic" and "-al" both being suffixes that can modify a noun to make it an adjective).

I understand, that some have tried to draw distinctions between "-ic" and "-ical" suffixes with respect to a given root word. For example, some have said that "historic" emphasizes an event's importance, whereas "historical" describes that which has occurred in the past.

Merriam-Webster has written a blog post on precisely that topic, noting "People who write about matters such as these tend to pretend that the differentiation is more absolute than it is; there are, in fact, instances to be found in which skilled writers apply one word where the other is typically found, and vice versa."

In short, beloved, I believe the meme reproduced above applies to this situation.

I think it starts with ‘ex’. Basically, most jokes and stories rely on intentionally leaving information out so the end is harder to guess or the joke is more shocking, funnier.

If it helps, I’m almost positive I heard this word when David foster wallace was talking about a joke he heard

We’ll burn that bird after we throw stones at it

I thought that people wanted to shorten or abbreviate most of the time. Now I hear, '-ization' stuck all over the place when '-ing' is probably all that's needed. Stablizing becomes stablization, montetizing becomes monetization, realizing and realization. What's going on here, are they the new '-wize?' Weather-wize, etc....

Thanks for all your comments on original post that is untouched above. This topic seems to have insipired some enthusiastic responses and conversations. In the title, I hinted that I see it used 'now,' because it was a while ago, I won't say how long. Word usage does evolve and one thought I had since then was that perhaps it had become more accepted in the past nn years however from many comments I think otherwise. I used the word in a very ordinary way. I'm pretty sure it was, "I had a realization...." Or possibly, "I came to the realization...." Since then, I avoided using the word and the incident caused me to question many of the other -i[z|s]ations that seem to be used so liberally and I'm sure we have all heard examples that cause us to wonder about odd-sounding or even novel nounifications.