The apostrophe thing really grinds my gears. Especially “it’s” vs “its”. It’s not very hard, “it’s” is a contraction meaning “it is”. Otherwise, it’s possessive. This homonym is its own worst enemy.
I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
You’ll have to hate the Greeks for that then, because the usage of Ancient Greek ζῆλος (zêlos, from which we get both of the doublets “jealous” and “zealous”) already overlapped with what we now call “envy”, and this overlap was borrowed into Latin as zelosus (which still overlapped with the native Latin word invidiosus that became envy), and thence into Old French jalous, which continued to overlap with envie.
That is to say, as far back as we can trace, jealous has always also meant envious, and they’ve coexisted in that manner since at least Classical Latin.
As with most of the obnoxiously pedantic “facts” about language in threads like this one, this supposed “distinction” is recent, artificial, and only exists to give those in the know a false sense of superiority over those without the “secret knowledge”. The secret knowledge is usually (as it is in this case) literally wrong, but all that matters to them, of course, is that they have a reason to think of themselves as better than other people.
That’s a bit harsh. When I say someone is envious as opposed to jealous, I am trying to convey a particular meaning. It doesn’t bother me if someone uses the terms interchangeably as I can usually work out what they mean, but I do like my communication to be as clear as possible.
I wasn’t trying to say that you necessarily were trying to feel superior - just that that’s why those so-called “distinctions” exist in the first place.
The reality is that natural human languages are always and inevitably unclear, redundant, etc., and there’s literally no way to change that. Even if you taught babies a logical conlang (constructed language) like lojban as their first language, within a single generation you’d begin to see ambiguity introduced into the system, because that’s just how humans are wired.
Language only has to be clear enough, which is borne out by the fact that every human has a different grammar, and yet we are all still able to communicate satisfactorily. There is no clarity to be gained from a pedantic differentiation between “jealousy” and “envy”, since in the vast majority of cases the intended meaning is immediately clear from context, and in the tiny minority of cases where it isn’t, an extra word or two will do the trick perfectly well, and that extra word or two will usually come naturally and unconsciously on the part of the speaker.
Here I am, calling out pedants for being literally and demonstrably wrong about language for two (and a half thousand, under the sloppy reading) years and counting!
The difference being that my “pedantry” is informed by history and linguistic theory, and is intended to stop linguistic prejudice, as opposed to the pedantry threads like this are magnets for perpetuating linguistic prejudice while being completely wrong in the process.
See my comment here about why there is no such thing as confusing envy and jealousy, because “jealousy” has always included the meaning of envy for at least the past 2500 years.
Abberant apostrophes (and missing ones).
Sentences that miss out words for no reason: e.g. “A couple things” vs. “A couple of things”.
Confusing envy and jealousy.
The above is a personal list; I don’t get judgemental about others’ grammar but I do cringe internally.
Are you jealous people who aren;t bothered by those errors?
Well done on that semi-colon: really pushing my buttons!
The apostrophe thing really grinds my gears. Especially “it’s” vs “its”. It’s not very hard, “it’s” is a contraction meaning “it is”. Otherwise, it’s possessive. This homonym is its own worst enemy.
I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
You’ll have to hate the Greeks for that then, because the usage of Ancient Greek ζῆλος (zêlos, from which we get both of the doublets “jealous” and “zealous”) already overlapped with what we now call “envy”, and this overlap was borrowed into Latin as zelosus (which still overlapped with the native Latin word invidiosus that became envy), and thence into Old French jalous, which continued to overlap with envie.
That is to say, as far back as we can trace, jealous has always also meant envious, and they’ve coexisted in that manner since at least Classical Latin.
As with most of the obnoxiously pedantic “facts” about language in threads like this one, this supposed “distinction” is recent, artificial, and only exists to give those in the know a false sense of superiority over those without the “secret knowledge”. The secret knowledge is usually (as it is in this case) literally wrong, but all that matters to them, of course, is that they have a reason to think of themselves as better than other people.
That’s a bit harsh. When I say someone is envious as opposed to jealous, I am trying to convey a particular meaning. It doesn’t bother me if someone uses the terms interchangeably as I can usually work out what they mean, but I do like my communication to be as clear as possible.
I wasn’t trying to say that you necessarily were trying to feel superior - just that that’s why those so-called “distinctions” exist in the first place.
The reality is that natural human languages are always and inevitably unclear, redundant, etc., and there’s literally no way to change that. Even if you taught babies a logical conlang (constructed language) like lojban as their first language, within a single generation you’d begin to see ambiguity introduced into the system, because that’s just how humans are wired.
Language only has to be clear enough, which is borne out by the fact that every human has a different grammar, and yet we are all still able to communicate satisfactorily. There is no clarity to be gained from a pedantic differentiation between “jealousy” and “envy”, since in the vast majority of cases the intended meaning is immediately clear from context, and in the tiny minority of cases where it isn’t, an extra word or two will do the trick perfectly well, and that extra word or two will usually come naturally and unconsciously on the part of the speaker.
Ah, there you are.
Here I am, calling out pedants for being literally and demonstrably wrong about language for two (and a half thousand, under the sloppy reading) years and counting!
“I see your pedantry, and raise you triple-dog pedantry!”
The difference being that my “pedantry” is informed by history and linguistic theory, and is intended to stop linguistic prejudice, as opposed to the pedantry threads like this are magnets for perpetuating linguistic prejudice while being completely wrong in the process.
Edit: Typo
You have an unnecessary comma in there.
deleted by creator
See my comment here about why there is no such thing as confusing envy and jealousy, because “jealousy” has always included the meaning of envy for at least the past 2500 years.