There are a handful of words that are commonly misused
by most American ... because most Americans are idiots.
Here's brief list.
Facetious
As in: "Stop being facetious" or "he's just being facetious."
This word is used as a synonym for "funny" but facetious means
"ill-timed humor." But even Webster's second definition for "facetious"
lends credence to this deviation. One isn't facetious for telling a joke. One isn't
being facetious for telling a bad joke. One is facetious for telling
a joke - good or bad - at the wrong time. Saying; "Wow, your grandma
sure has big tits" to someone especially at her funeral is facetious because
the circumstances are all wrong. Put the same joke in a movie like
"American Pie" and it gets big laughs. When we make words with subtly
shades of meaning synonyms for the simplest possible terms, then all
words come to represent the simplest possible concepts. We lose the
ability to express complex ideas.
Nectar
As in: "This beer is the nectar of the gods!" Well, yes, isn't just? Every drunk
in the United States has said "nectar of the gods" at one point or another.
This isn't inaccurate so much as it is just redundant hyperbole. It's a cliche
and cliche's said over and over again lose their meaning. The gods on
Mt. Olympus drink nectar and eat ambrosia. These items are really concepts
to describe food and drink so good they are beyond the human capacity
to comprehend. There is no "nectar of the Poles" or "nectar of the Congress."
So nectar is only nectar of the gods. No one ever says "ambrosia of he gods"
do they? Additionally, fruits and vegetables produce nectar and nectar is the
primary component of honey, but these things take their name from the
original and no one is usually referring to fruit juice when they say "nectar
of the gods."
Myriad
This word literally meant 10,000 when the Greeks came up with it, but
soon came to mean "a great number." And it's not a bad word. Kind of
flows gently from between the lips with a sight bounciness and just a hint
of the tip of the tongue at the end for authority. It's fun to say. Which is
probably why every bugger says it way too much especially in the form
"a myriad of ..." That phrasing was popularized by Henry David Thoreau,
but to his credit, he only said it once. Meanwhile, every geek with a chub
on for Greek word uses "myriad of ..." instead of "lots of ..." every chance
they get. Funny turn on this one, the high brow crowd of word-smith
psuedo-intellectuals and grammarian rule mongers disdain the use of
the word myriad as a noun operating under the mistaken assumption
that the word is only properly used as an adjective. These pinheads are
wrong. Myriad is properly used as a noun first and an adjective second.
So not all of these words are corrupted by the lowly.
Plethora
As in just another word for "lots"; used interchangeably with myriad.
"Plethora" is used in the exact same way as "myriad," which is funny
since "plethora" refers to an excess of blood in the body. "Plethora" is
a variety of abundance usually treated with leeches by doctors in the
Middle Ages. The subtle usage of plethora would tend to indicate
something at least vaguely sick, uncomfortable or disquieting. A plethora
of choices is a good thing typically, but a plethora of diseases might be
more accurate. A plethora of choices in the potato chip isle might
connote the right amount of irony for so many unhealthy options.
Cornucopia
Literally, a horn of plenty. Originally a goat's horn filled with fruit and
grain symbolizing plenitude around harvest time. Today, it's mostly a
wicker cone used as a center piece at Thanksgiving. It's overused by
people with a dearth of vocabulary and scant imagination who frequently
precede it with "veritable." The USA Steak Buffet offers a veritable
cornucopia of dishes. The irony of this is that veritable means that the
thing being described is actually the thing being described and not false or
imaginary. Mostly it's just mental laziness and lack of imagination that
leads folk to say this over and over again. Which leads us to the king
of all overused, misused and abuse terms.
Ironic
Here is a good example of WHY most people misuse ironic from a
junior high school English class web site:
Meaning of ironic (adj.) contradictory; inconsistent; sarcastic.
Example of ironic: Is it not ironic that Americans will toss out leftover
French fries while people around the globe continue to starve?
NO! It is not! "Ironic" means "given to irony." "Irony" is when words are used to express
the opposite of their literal meaning. This would be a good example of irony:
"Isn't it ironic that someone called 'a teacher' would teach kids the incorrect
definition of 'ironic'?"
This is why we have people running around saying things like "Oh my God,
it's so ironic that I ran into you at the mall."
