A Pedant's Lot Is Not A Happy One

[ajva]

I hate it very much when I see a shop advertise a chaise longue as a "chaise lounge". Ignorant tossers.

I hate it very much when people use the word fulsome incorrectly. In fact, I rarely see it used correctly these days, which makes me wonder if we are going to lose a very succinct and useful word to the inexorable onwards march of linguistic evolution. Damn.




In case you're scared to ask, "fulsome" does emphatically *not* mean "comprehensive" (don't get mixed up between "ful-" and "full"). It means something like "cloyingly insincere by excess", thus "fulsome praise" means praise that is too over the top to be sincere. Here endeth the lesson.

Comments

[booklectica]

My boss keeps using 'fulsome' to means 'comprehensive'. I've tried to break this habit seversl times, mainly by showing him the dictionary, but he keeps forgetting. I thought it was just him though.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Nope. I see/hear it all over the place. It's a particular disease on the Motley Fool boards, I've noticed, where I've often seen people thanked for their posts thus: "Once again thanks to [X] for his fulsome analysis..."

Grrr.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Good grief. you know I dont like pedantic grammar Nazi stuff but that usae of fulsome is nasty.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

That's weird, I don't think I've ever seen fulsome used that way...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Damn, that misuse never occurred to me - I always thought the Fool was being sarcastic!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Though I would never have referred to a "fulsome analysis", I didn't know "fulsome" implied "insincere", so thanks for the warning...

[jhg.livejournal.com]

No, classically 'fulsome' simply means 'abundant', as in 'she clutched him to her fulsome bosom.'

Sigh...


J

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. You may be right, but it would surely be worth holding on to the sense it has progressed to over the past couple of centuries? I accept that usage moves on; my initial complaint was focused on the fear of losing much if the usefulness of the word via a retrograde simplification of its meaning.

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

I have been known to mispell chaise longue (and indeed, many other words), but I would check before writing it on a sign

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't mean to deliver a slap on the face to people making typos generally - we all do htat [sic] - but to furniture shops who make this particular mistake because they think it's the way it should be spelt. I just think that, since it's their business, they should be able to get it right.

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

I've never come across the misuse of fulsome before. Mind you, words change their signified over time cf 'presently'.

My personal bete noir is when people deliberately mispell words, for example dropping the ae from paedophile, thus changing their meaning. The US spelling of mediaeval is another one.

Soph

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fulsome says

Usage Note: Fulsome is often used to mean “offensively flattering or insincere.” But the word is also used, particularly in the expression fulsome praise, to mean simply “abundant,” without any implication of excess or insincerity. This usage is etymologically justified but may invite misunderstandings in contexts in which a deprecatory interpretation could be made. The sentence I offer you my most fulsome apologies may raise an eyebrow, where the use of an adjective like full or abundant would leave no room for doubt as to the sincerity of the speaker's intentions.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

My Greek isn't really good enough to be sure here, but are you saying that all pedophiles are foot fetishists? :-)