JovialJman - Words And Their Misuse

So many of the words we use today come from Greek and Latin, be we cannot speak or read either.

There are many rules that we use in English and other things which we just think to be correct, but they are far from it. Even native English speakers make so many mistakes on a daily basis and we don't even realize it. Let's talk about that.

The rule "i before e except after c" is a very famous one among the 80's kids and younger. This was a rule of thumb to help you spell some of the words, if you did not know if it was spelled with either "ei" or "ie". However, there are so many exceptions to this rule that it is no longer taught at schools. The full rhyme that was supposed to be learnt was, "i before e except after c or when sounded as "a" as in neighbor and weigh." This rule only applies to words that are pronounced with a long e sound (ee), so unless that is known, this rule will not apply, which made it useless to learn as it might have been easier to learn the words themselves and avoid the confusion.

When asking many people when to use "a" vs "an", they would say that, if it starts with a vowel the you will use an "an" and when it starts with a consonant it will be preceded by an "a". This rule will hold up most of the time but then you get words such as hour and honest, these words start with a consonant but are preceded by an "an". This rule is incomplete in this regard. The full and correct rule would be use an "a" before words that are pronounced initially with a consonant and use "an" when a word is pronounced with a vowel. (I had an argument with a family friend about this, and what is about to follow, as he told me "that sounds wrong. That is not what I learnt.". I believe that this is part of the problem with some of the mistakes today as the different generations are taught differently.)

What is the opposite of flammable? Inflammable... right? If you thought that, then you are among so many that have the preconceived notion that the prefix "in-" is used as a negative modifier to words, when in fact it is sometimes used to strengthen the meaning of said word. Inflammable and flammable are technically synonyms as the meaning is the same. The reason that we have these 2 words came about when people made the mistake as thinking "inflammable" meant that it is not easy to set alight. There were people that thought that it would be better to use a word that was less ambiguous, thus this quote started to appear, "The National Safety Council, The National Fire Protection Association, and similar organizations have set out to discourage the use of the word “inflammable” and to encourage the use of the word "flammable” instead. The reason for this change is that the meaning of “inflammable” has so often been misinterpreted." Many purists did not want this change to happen, and I am with them on this one; however, since it was safety officials that tried to push this cause, it did eventually come into common modern use after many years of trying.

So since there have been words and rules that have been misinterpreted, I thought I might share some interesting words I have come to know.
"Wont" is a word to describe a custom or tradition of something, but if you add an apostrophe, won't, it becomes the contraction of "will not" (because win't would just be weird, Teehee).
"Antidisestablishmentarianism" is a word know by many for it's absurd length, but the meaning is not. (It is also seen a certain teachers English class for those who go or went to EGHS), it's meaning: - A political philosophy opposed to the separation of a religious group and a government.
Of course, some of these posts on this blog may be considered "arbitrary", but the meaning of it is not. Arbitrary - based on random choice or personal whim, rather than that of any reason or system.
"Sesquipedalian" is a word that describes words that are long and the fear of long words is "Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia", (Could you say that phobia if you suffered from it? The person that came up with that 15 syllable word is really mean, Teehee), but there is a shorter version, "Sesquipedalophobia".
When someone knows, or is fluent in many languages, they are a "polyglot", though it is often a hard time deciding if you are fluent in a language or not. In English, if you know how to say and use about 7000 words, you can then be considered fluent, despite there being so many more words that one can use, (like some you found in this paragraph).

Autological words are words that describes themselves, whereas heterological words do not describe themselves. The word yellow is not yellow and the word circle is not a circle, so they are heterological like most words in English, but you do get a fair few that are autological. English is indeed English, noun is a noun. In the link earlier there is this quote that I have to share on this matter, "The opposite of autological is heterological. A heterological word, like yellow or square, does not describe itself. So does “heterological” describe itself? If yes, then by definition it’s autological, so then it doesn't describe itself. But if no, then “heterological” is heterological, therefore it actually does describe itself, which means it’s autological … AM I BLOWING YOUR MIND? Welcome to the Grelling-Nelson Paradox."

Anyways, that is enough of my banter, if you feel that I have well informed you of some of the strangeness that is English, or have any other words or terms that you feel must be let known to the public, then please tell us down in the comments, or over Facebook/Twitter, as we here at TCSA love to hear from you. Do you know of anyone that might enjoy this post, then please share it with them as I am sure they will thank you for it. If you would like to see new posts as they come out, or would like to just show your support, then please consider liking us on Facebook and.or following us on Twitter, using the associated buttons on the bar to the left. Thank you for taking the time to read this post and I shall write again overmorrow.

Happy learning people.