Words that have lost their meaning ...

fantasmagorical

 

I didn't correct my mom when she described as surreal receiving and absorbing the news that she had lymphoma. If the word didn't fit that situation, I don't know what situation it would fit.

Definitions of Surreal on the Web:

* strange or bizarre.
www.curriculumsupport.nsw.edu.au/litnumsite/Lie/glossary.html

* phantasmagoric: characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions; "a great concourse of phantasmagoric shadows"--J.C.Powys; "the incongruous imagery in surreal art and literature"
* dreamlike: resembling a dream; "night invested the lake with a dreamlike quality"; "as irrational and surreal as a dream"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

 

batshit

 

I was just in Blockbuster, standing near five teenagers, and I heard "like" and "really" about 100 times in five minutes.

"He's, like, really great to work for. Like, she told me he's really nice, and she like told me he's really, really, like, so the opposite of her last boss."

"Love" and "hate" -- as in "where's the love for (fill in the blank)," and all the new derivatives of "hate," including "why is everyone hating on (fill in the blank)?"

 

epic

 

Legion

 

"threadjacked" ... and what about words that only show up in crosswords anymore?

 

Heroic.

 

This one is much, much worse than you even know. Women everywhere are proclaiming themselves divas of everything. At this point I think diva is synonymous with egomaniac.

If you ever run into a woman whose self-description contains the words "diva" or "princess," run as fast and as far as you can and never look back.

One that's bothered me is "nonplussed." It actually means "utterly perplexed; completely puzzled," as in you are so impacted by something that you are unsure of what to do next. Somehow the word is becoming synonymous with "undisturbed, unimpressed, indifferent' -- the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what the word means.

I can't even use it in stories anymore for fear of people thinking I mean the opposite.

 

Deb, . Are you sure you want to go there?

 

Real. Nobody is real anymore, as in genuine. We spend so much time being either something else to appease or please someone, or to be PC that being a real person is no longer acceptable.

Reality. It has been hijacked by TV producers who make "reality TV," which isn't reality, after all.

Real Life. It used to be that we all lived our lives in real life. That isn't even possible anymore with the rampant stupidity we are forced to put up with because, if you go back to my first paragraph, nobody is real anymore.

 

That's a good one. It's used many times when there is no anxiety and "eager" should be used.