Asklemmy

43945 readers

638 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

158

What's a word you've spent a long time not using right? (lemm.ee)

submitted 11 months ago by shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

255 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what "tories" meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it's not usual to use it as short for "territories" as I've used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I'm reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.

More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing "encephalitis" with "hydrocephalus" when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 19 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I happily described a nice coffee shop as "kitschy" to the guy behind the counter and quickly learned from his reaction that it isn't the synonym for "artsy" that I thought it was.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago

It means "a naive imitation" for anyone who's ears are turning red now. Puts on a wool cap.

[–] CobblerScholar@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And here I thought it meant quirky, fuck

[–] bran_buckler@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

If I’ve literally learned anything, it’s that if a bunch of us keep using it as a compliment to mean quirky, we can shift the meaning!

[–] june@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

And what does it actually mean?

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

I thought something similar about the word "campy", as in something so dry it becomes its own style.