I’ve seen “let alone” used on Lemmy a good number of times now and, at least when I noticed it, it was always used incorrectly. It’s come to a point where I still feel like I’m being gaslit even after looking up examples, just because of the sheer amount of times I’ve seen it used outright wrong.
What I’m talking about is people switching up the first and last part. In “X, let alone Y” Y is supposed to be the more extreme case, the one that is less likely to happen, or could only happen if X also did first.
The correct usage: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not even open the box, let alone eat it.”
How I see it used constantly: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not eat it, let alone open the box.”
Other wrong usage: “Nobody checks out books anymore, let alone visits the library.”
Why does this bug me so much? I don’t know. One reason I came up with is that it’s boring. The “wrong” way the excitement always ramps down with the second sentence, so why even include it?
I am prepared to be shouted down for still somehow being incorrect about this. Do your worst. At least I’ll know I keep shifting between dimensions where “let alone” is always used differently or something.
That is a fair grammatical pet peeve. I have a pet peeve for when people use words for the exact opposite of their meaning. Not just your classic “could care less”, or other things that mostly just come from people mishearing the correct phrase, but using entirely different words whose definition literally means the opposite of what they mean.
A couple examples:
I had a Facebook friend talk about how, before he went on a trip overseas for a few months, like 30 people threw him a surprise going away party. He described this event as “humbling”. Yeah, that giant group of people coming out to celebrate you in particular and personally send you off on your trip must have really took you down a peg. I’m sure it really lowered your ego and made you realize you aren’t important.
I CONSTANTLY hear in tv shows and movies stuff like “I’m really anxious to get going. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” The word is “eager”. You are eager for something good that you have been anticipating. You are only anxious for some upcoming event that you are dreading or that you are trying to avoid, something causing you anxiety, thus the word. You are anxious for the upcoming test you arent prepared for and you are anxious to escape the haunted house without screaming like a little girl at a jump scare. You are not anxious to earn a payraise.
I mostly agree with everything you said, but words can have multiple meanings like anxious:
Dictionaries only add those later definitions because dictionaries document the dumb ways people use words after all the correct ways.
So, yes, words have multiple meanings because people use them in all sorts of dumb ways and dictionaries capture that.
What are your thoughts of the word, “awful”?
It’s awful!
See the problem with that is that I believe the 3rd meaning there comes from the common misuse of the word. Otherwise the connotation behind the word loses all meaning. It would be indiscernible in what way you anticipating an event if the word means something you dread and something you eagerly wait using the exact same phrase. “I’m anxious for dad to get home”, for example, should have the connotation that they are expecting trouble when their dad gets home, while “I’m eager for dad to get home” tells you that something good will come with dad’s arrival. But that third definition means “anxious” gives both connotations, or rather neither. If anxious is both an antonym and a synonym to “eager”, it’s a linguistically meaningless word. Why bother saying it at all if you also have to explain it or give additional context to understand which polar opposite meaning you intended?
So to your first concern, the link address it:
How long does a term have to be commonly missed before it is just a common use?
As for your second concern, language isn’t separate from context. The use comes first in context and then we derive definitions. 🌍👨🏾🚀🔫👩🏾🚀
Again, not saying it’s not common use. It clearly is. But it robs the word of any meaning on its own and makes so that it has to be propped up by context to have any meaning at all. It’s not like a word taking on an entirely new definition unrelated to its previous use or it’s previous definitions being replaced by new ones. It’s newer definition is the exact opposite of its original and yet both definitions are commonly used in the exact same phrasing. Like I said, it’s a pet peeve. This newer common use definition makes the word mean nothing at all to the listener. I think anxious and eager are two separate words that should serve two separate purposes in language and making anxious mean both is dumb.
I think you misunderstand how meaning is created. Meaning is always contextual, not prescriptive definitions.
Is that why the dictionary defines every word with “it depends”, “hard to say”, and “I don’t know, man. You figure it out!”?
Derisive sarcasm isn’t useful here.
Definitions are still a useful tool and help clarify the semantic field. Dictionaries are a project that imply that meaning is dependent and contextual. Dictionaries attempt to capture it, for now. A word’s meaning depends upon its part of speech and can mean different things when present in different parts of speech i.e., row. Homonyms, of which contranyms like anxious and cleave are a subset of, can even exist in the same part of speech. “A bat flew past me” is a meaningful statement, but we have deferred it’s meaning until context reveals what type of bat. It could literally be either.
Etymologies can help understand how this happens. Or their transformation can be lost. Languages change. The word “ephemera” has nothing to do with fevers. Original meaning is not the supreme meaning. Connection to the original does not confer primacy. “Cleave” means to “stay close to” and “split apart”. When you look at how the same word from two different non-English sources enter English at two different times, you see how a contranym can emerge.
The meaning of a word is open to change from social circumstances. Just because it used to mean something like a one day fever doesn’t mean it still means that nor does it mean that it’s connection is either obvious, tracable, or necessary.
A fixed meaning has to be divorced from people and it’s use. Language is a reflection of the people who use it. Meaning has several points of instability. Only context can fasten it. Context is the only way meaning is reveal despite our anxious anticipation for its stability. We are ahead of the meaning when we prematurely seek it’s stability, clarity, and certainty. And when contranyms allow for double meaning, it can be an invitation to play. And is anything more human than that?
Oh. No, that wasn’t sarcastic. That was completely earnest. But, of course, I’m defining “earnest” in this case to be a synonym of sarcastic. I assume you got that from context.
I parse “anxious to get going” as being overwhelmed in the interim: restlessness, beset by uncertainty (“did we pack the toothbrushes?”, “did we confirm the hotel reservation?”, “what does traffic look like?”, etc.). The eagerness is for the going itself, the anxiety is for the period up to the going.
My wife, for example, is always anxious about dozens of details and considerations in the lead up to a trip, but once we’re actually in the car and en route that falls away. I think a lot of people are the same, where they panic about little details up to an event, but once they’ve crossed the threshold from lead up to the event itself the prep panic disappears.
That’s how that should be parsed, you’re right. A bit of a weak example on my part, because it can and should be understood exactly like that. But typically, in media, that is not the intended meaning that they are trying to communicate.
In regards to anxious: I suspect this usage is similar to “anxiously awaiting” just morphed slightly. “I’m anxiously awaiting a raise” makes sense as a sentence, but is a bit clunky.