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

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I used the term 'pursuant' incorrectly for a long time. I thought it meant something like 'things you do in order to achieve something', like sweeping the floor is pursuant to getting the kitchen clean, vs the correct usage, which is either 'in accordance with', or 'in a manner conformable to'. So a correct usage would be 'sweeping the floor is pursuant to the procedure we set up to clean the kitchen'. Nice word, though. I like it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

As a foreigner I would have made that same mistake, since it sounds like it’s related to pursuit. Educational comments in this

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

sweeping the floor is persuant to the procedure...

Its more often used in formal and legal stuff. I'd kinda perceive you were being an ass or condescending if you were to use it that way. Like its just an annoying word generally.

You might want to simply say

"please do x like I showed you"

or something like that. I would honestly never use persuant unless I was a prosecutor even though I'm intimately familiar with its use in legal and other academic writing.

Just don't use it, also is English your first language? I feel like no native English speaker would ever really use that aha

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I cooked my poptart perfectly pursuant to the packaged directions?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Why not just say I made/had a poptart? Why do you need to get that descriptive about it, its junkfood that you just eat or pop in the toaster, hence the name. Is like a tart you pop in the toaster

Worst case, use according but I don't get why you'd ever need to say that. Nobody who speaks English would really ever say that, that sounds like a textbook exercise lol

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

“As per my previous emails…”