There are many ways English doesn't follow precise scientific style definitions. Some English-speakers are annoyed by some of the inconsistencies and disorder of English words. There are even some who take their annoyance out on others, just because others don't see a problem. In this, there is movement that tries to bring hierarchical order to English. When people defy this attempt for order, they can find themselves being attacked for their word choices.
I've talked about the phrase
begs the question in a previous article. Use of this phrase will trigger attacks by pedants. There are specific words that elicit similar literary venom. At the top of the list is
ironical.
Ironical irony
There are many people that sincerely believe
ironical is not a word, and that only
ironic should be used in cases where irony is an adjective. They will actually make fun of people who use the word
ironical correctly. I've used the term myself in an ironic sense, only to trigger people who don't understand the irony of being opposed to the use of the word
ironical, and the double-irony that
ironical is actually a real word, and the triple-irony that I used the word to make fun of something else (namely, being pedantic).
There was an episode on
Seinfeld, where the character Seinfeld confidently declares there is no such word
ironical. I don't know if this started the hatred of the word, but it certainly popularized that hatred.
Another ironic fact about
ironical is that it actually has a more concise definition than
ironic.
Ironic has three distinct definitions, where
ironical has two related definitions.
The word
irony itself is also the subject to derision. The definition of
irony includes something being incongruous. Yet, using
irony in this manner can trigger pendants into criticizing you.
Number game
Another example of people trying to bring order to disorder of the English language lies in the alternative terms for numbers. Namely,
couple,
few,
dozen, etc. But, that's not good enough for some. In some schools, kids are taught that there is a concise progression to these terms, where
couple = 2,
several = 3 and
few = 4.
If you look up
several in the dictionary, you'll find a variety of definitions that can vary between dictionaries. Some dictionaries say that
several means
"more than 2 or 3", while others say it means "more than a few". However, in all cases,
several represents an "indefinitely small number".
If you look up
few in the dictionary, you'll find that
few doesn't actually represent any particular number at all in most definitions. It doesn't mean "3 or 4" or just "4". It simply means an "indefinitely small number", similar to
several.
I've even heard some claim that the word
some has a defined number of 2 or more, when in fact,
some can refer to any number, large or small, including 1 or 1,000,000.
Orientation
Another word I've seen trigger people is
orientate.
Orientate and
orient both mean the same thing as verbs in most cases. But,
orient is also a noun. Some people prefer to say
orientate to identify the word as a verb since
orientate has no noun meaning. In other words, it's actually more concise to use the word
orientate when talking about taking an action that will change the orientation of a thing.
Inflamed much?
Is it wrong to use the word
inflammable when
flammable means exactly the same thing? Well, they both have the same definition, but for different reasons. Root word for
flammable is
flame.
Flame is a noun. However,
inflame is the root word of
inflammable.
Inflame is a verb. And,
inflammation is a noun with a completely different meaning than
flame. The word
flammation is obsolete. It meant to cause something to be set on fire. What's the other word for that? Oh, that's right,
inflame. So, technically,
flammable should be the word we stop using if we were to choose between it and
inflammable. I wonder who would be inflamed by that?
What are some other words that bug someone you know?