Nauseous

Did you know that most of us use the word nauseous wrong? Nauseous is actually an adjective. The word you should use when trying to say that you feel sick is nauseated. So, when an EMT asks you why you puked all over the ground, you can say that you felt nauseated. And then you can talk about how nauseous (having the quality of making someone nauseated) this distinction is. Hopefully the hypothetical EMT is sympathetic and not bad looking and that will make this a winning situation.

I learned this from someone who also was adamant that a lot was two words, not one as is common use in the world today. I made the comment that other things had changed over time and become acceptable as words in the English language simply because of their common use. Like Klingon. Or ain't. Which is in the dictionary. This person did not approve of this attitude toward grammar or language development; clearly, she was a prescriptive grammarian. In her eyes, things should not become acceptable over time.

Alot shouldn't be added in the dictionary, she said. It would be making something that was intrinsically wrong socially correct. It's like saying that one day homosexuality will be right, because it will have become socially acceptable.

At this point in time, my politeness and my wit failed me. She sat turned around backwards in the bus seat as we pulled into the church and smiled at me, like this was a point that clearly we all agreed on. I sat there for a few long seconds and then said, "Your reasoning is absolutely right."

It's a good thing God didn't write the dictionary. We'd have a whole lot more people unfairly banned from churches and ordination than we do today.