• TheDannysaur@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    2 months ago

    … What?

    Is this some weird “victim mentality” thing?

    People love to use it because it got popular and grew to mean more than the original definition to the point where it just got generic to encompass a wide range of things. It’s the same as cringe.

      • reliv3@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 months ago

        By this metric, one can argue that we currently “misuse” a lot of words in the English language, but the reality is language evolves. Think about how the definition of “nice” has evolved from meaning “ignorant or stupid” in the 1300s to it’s current meaning.

        • ravhall@discuss.online
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          So gaslighting should change to what? Telling someone they are doing something that they feel they aren’t?

          You’re nice.

          • nomous@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 month ago

            I’ve noticed this a lot the last 5-10 years. Nobody uses words wrong anymore it’s all “language evolves” and “language is descriptive not prescriptive.”

            People are just using the word wrong.

            • ravhall@discuss.online
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 month ago

              It’s just crappy education mixed with “don’t tell me what to do” mentality. A lot of it is probably social media, where a popular person starts using a word wrong and that quickly spreads and is often used assuming the listener knows about the inside joke.

              I was talking with someone IRL who was a very big Twitter and TikTok user. They are also (diagnosed) autistic. It was difficult to follow them because most of what they would say sounded almost meme-like, very accusatory, and rude. I would ask them not to talk to me like that and it was dismissed a “obviously a joke” or “sarcasm” or “deadpan.”