So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Zombie_61]

I worked for a man for quite a few years who was a fountain of mispronounced words and malaprops. People would ask us how we knew what he was saying most of the time. It wasn't hard to understand him once you learned his dialect...

When I sold tires back in 1983-84 the sole mechanic at the shop had a cleft palate that made it difficult for him to pronounce most words properly. He was very good natured about it, and after a couple of weeks I could easily understand at least 95% of what he said; as you wrote, it was a simple matter of learning his specific "dialect". Three or four times he had to explain to customers what was wrong with their vehicle, and each time they patiently listened to his explanation, then turned to look at me with that "deer in the headlights" expression on their faces because they hadn't understood a word he said. I then acted as translator, repeating what he had said, and when I'd finished he'd nod his head up and down and say, "Uh huh"; that, they understood. Because of his speech impediment he usually didn't say much, but he had a wonderful sense of humor so when he said something it was usually worth hearing.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Aye, there's the rub. They're not native, so they have no predators on this side of the planet. And with climate change being a thing, long hard freezes to kill they off are becoming less & less frequent. So between those two things they get progressively worse as time passes.

Yep, things can only get worse but on a brighter note, we appear to be blissfully anaware. Every dog has a silver lining & all that.

 

[Fading Fast]

We have a friend who regularly used the word "emancipated" in reference to a very thin person. The first time or three we were with other people and it would have embarrassed her if I had corrected her, but she finally used the word incorrectly when it was just the two of us and I joked, "Well, at least she was free to be skinny." She didn't get the joke, so I had to explain the difference between "emancipated" and "emaciated". She understood the difference and thanked me, but continued to use "emancipated" incorrectly because it was embedded in her brain.

Nothing addresses this and many of the above posts better than this chestnut (which can mean both an old joke or an old joke that is no longer funny - I still laugh at this one, so I'm going with the first definition):

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Nothing addresses this and many of the above posts better than this chestnut (which can mean both an old joke or an old joke that is no longer funny - I still laugh at this one, so I'm going with the first definition):

You probably mean ' Old chestnut' which refers to a joke, story or subject that has been discussed or repeated too often. Very apt.

 

[Fading Fast]

You probably mean ' Old chestnut' which refers to a joke, story or subject that has been discussed or repeated too often. Very apt.

Both "Old chestnut" and "chestnut" are used. One could even argue "old chestnut" is repetitive.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A lot of these words and phrases become so common that eventually they do become acceptable. I always used to get annoyed with people who use the analogy of "the carrot or the stick," because as far as I know it comes from the idea of a farmer causing a donkey to pull a cart by dangling a carrot from the end of a stick held out in front of the animal's nose, just far enough out of reach that the donkey keeps moving forward in an attempt to get it. I always heard it used as "the carrot and the stick," a parable of exploitation.

But since the 80s or so, I started hearing the "carrot or stick" variation, in which the carrot was an incentive to promote some behavior or other, and if the carrot didn't work, the stick would be used to compel the behavior by force. This never made any sense to me, because I can't shake the image of the farmer and the donkey, in which the stick is simply a tool in a method of exploitation, not an implement for physical punishment, and in which there is no choice offered -- the carrot is *always* dangling from the stick, regardless of the wishes of the donkey, and the farmer never has any intention of letting the donkey reach the carrot. It's a significant difference in the tactic used, such that the word "and" or "or" changes the entire meaning of the analogy.

I had never heard the "carrot or stick" version until it turned up in discussions of US foreign policy in the 80s, and I raged about it for a while as a distortion of a perfectly useful analogy, but eventually the "or" version became the dominant one, and hardly anyone even recognizes the image of the farmer, the donkey, and the cart anymore.

 

[Fading Fast]

A lot of these words and phrases become so common that eventually they do become acceptable. I always used to get annoyed with people who use the analogy of "the carrot or the stick," because as far as I know it comes from the idea of a farmer causing a donkey to pull a cart by dangling a carrot from the end of a stick held out in front of the animal's nose, just far enough out of reach that the donkey keeps moving forward in an attempt to get it. I always heard it used as "the carrot and the stick," a parable of exploitation.

But since the 80s or so, I started hearing the "carrot or stick" variation, in which the carrot was an incentive to promote some behavior or other, and if the carrot didn't work, the stick would be used to compel the behavior by force. This never made any sense to me, because I can't shake the image of the farmer and the donkey, in which the stick is simply a tool in a method of exploitation, not an implement for physical punishment, and in which there is no choice offered -- the carrot is *always* dangling from the stick, regardless of the wishes of the donkey, and the farmer never has any intention of letting the donkey reach the carrot. It's a significant difference in the tactic used, such that the word "and" or "or" changes the entire meaning of the analogy.

I had never heard the "carrot or stick" version until it turned up in discussions of US foreign policy in the 80s, and I raged about it for a while as a distortion of a perfectly useful analogy, but eventually the "or" version became the dominant one, and hardly anyone even recognizes the image of the farmer, the donkey, and the cart anymore.

I have no doubt about the accuracy of the above. I remember it as far back as when I started in business in the '80s (which aligns to your change timeline) and it was always used as "carrot or stick" as a metaphor for an enjoyable or not-enjoyable incentive (a bonus vs. a fee, say). What's funny, though, is I think that - I have a strong memory of but no context - I've seen a illustration of a donkey walking behind a carrot on a stick with "our" expression below (don't remember if it had an "and" or "or" in the text, but I can see the illustration - which, of course, would only make sense applied to the earlier version).

The thing about L 'n M's comment on "old chestnut" is we had a head of marketing who used to keep a category labeled "chestnuts" in marketing meetings when we were working on marketing campaigns as she hated them. To be fair, I've heard both version used for decades.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, that was a very common image in the Era -- whenever you saw a cartoon of a farmer riding on a cart, you'd have a bony donkey wearing a straw hat gazing up at a dangling carrot the farmer was holding out on the end of a stick. That image was so prevalent and so common for so long, it's surprising how completely the meaning of the phrase has been changed.

Oooweee. Nothing says "Christmas" like ripping off a poor defenseless donkey. Bah humbug.

 

[3fingers]

When I was a child our neighbors had an old pony that wasn't all that interested in hauling kids around any more. He would stand in one spot all day with a kid on his back. There was a little canvas sack on a stick that you would put a few oats in before climbing aboard. He would walk around very nicely as long as the sack was hanging just in front of him. When you got off of him you gave him the oats. None of this means anything beyond giving credence to the original meaning of the phrase.

 

[Fading Fast]

When I was a child our neighbors had an old pony that wasn't all that interested in hauling kids around any more. He would stand in one spot all day with a kid on his back. There was a little canvas sack on a stick that you would put a few oats in before climbing aboard. He would walk around very nicely as long as the sack was hanging just in front of him. When you got off of him you gave him the oats. None of this means anything beyond giving credence to the original meaning of the phrase.

And at least he got the reward at the end.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yep, that was a very common image in the Era -- whenever you saw a cartoon of a farmer riding on a cart, you'd have a bony donkey wearing a straw hat gazing up at a dangling carrot the farmer was holding out on the end of a stick. That image was so prevalent and so common for so long, it's surprising how completely the meaning of the phrase has been changed.

View attachment 139873

Oooweee. Nothing says "Christmas" like ripping off a poor defenseless donkey. Bah humbug.

That's just an odd Christmas card in many ways. And while the image in my head is of a B&W sketch (almost like a "New Yorker" magazine joke), it does echo it and, as you explain, it was common so probably tons of variations of it out there.

 

[tonyb]

A lot of these words and phrases become so common that eventually they do become acceptable. I always used to get annoyed with people who use the analogy of "the carrot or the stick," because as far as I know it comes from the idea of a farmer causing a donkey to pull a cart by dangling a carrot from the end of a stick held out in front of the animal's nose, just far enough out of reach that the donkey keeps moving forward in an attempt to get it. I always heard it used as "the carrot and the stick," a parable of exploitation.

But since the 80s or so, I started hearing the "carrot or stick" variation, in which the carrot was an incentive to promote some behavior or other, and if the carrot didn't work, the stick would be used to compel the behavior by force. This never made any sense to me, because I can't shake the image of the farmer and the donkey, in which the stick is simply a tool in a method of exploitation, not an implement for physical punishment, and in which there is no choice offered -- the carrot is *always* dangling from the stick, regardless of the wishes of the donkey, and the farmer never has any intention of letting the donkey reach the carrot. It's a significant difference in the tactic used, such that the word "and" or "or" changes the entire meaning of the analogy.

I had never heard the "carrot or stick" version until it turned up in discussions of US foreign policy in the 80s, and I raged about it for a while as a distortion of a perfectly useful analogy, but eventually the "or" version became the dominant one, and hardly anyone even recognizes the image of the farmer, the donkey, and the cart anymore.

In the "Terms Which Have Disappeared" thread are several entries with agricultural origins -- "a pig in a poke," for instance, "made as a wet hen," for another, and "stubborn as a mule" for a third.

The overwhelming majority of us modern Americans, city and suburb dwellers that we are, have never seen a pig in a poke, nor a wet hen, nor a stubborn mule. I would wager some modest amount that many have never seen a pig or a hen or a mule at all, except certain parts of same in the refrigerated cases at the supermarket, in the first two examples, anyway. (Mule steaks have yet to catch on in a big way.)

So it comes as no surprise that the carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick-just-beyond-the-cart-pulling-donkey's-reach would be so far outside most people's experience that they would of course think the reference was to incentives and disincentives -- rewards and punishments.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When Red Barber was broadcasting baseball in Brooklyn in the 1940s, he would often say, when something utterly astonishing happened on the field, "Well I'll be a suck-egg mule!" It's unlikely any of his listeners had any idea what he was talking about, and even he himself admitted to being a bit blurry on the actual meaning of the phrase -- but it caught among people who otherwise thought mules were something Margie Hart wore while stripping off at Minsky's.

 

[Edward]

A lot of these words and phrases become so common that eventually they do become acceptable. I always used to get annoyed with people who use the analogy of "the carrot or the stick," because as far as I know it comes from the idea of a farmer causing a donkey to pull a cart by dangling a carrot from the end of a stick held out in front of the animal's nose, just far enough out of reach that the donkey keeps moving forward in an attempt to get it. I always heard it used as "the carrot and the stick," a parable of exploitation.

But since the 80s or so, I started hearing the "carrot or stick" variation, in which the carrot was an incentive to promote some behavior or other, and if the carrot didn't work, the stick would be used to compel the behavior by force. This never made any sense to me, because I can't shake the image of the farmer and the donkey, in which the stick is simply a tool in a method of exploitation, not an implement for physical punishment, and in which there is no choice offered -- the carrot is *always* dangling from the stick, regardless of the wishes of the donkey, and the farmer never has any intention of letting the donkey reach the carrot. It's a significant difference in the tactic used, such that the word "and" or "or" changes the entire meaning of the analogy.

I had never heard the "carrot or stick" version until it turned up in discussions of US foreign policy in the 80s, and I raged about it for a while as a distortion of a perfectly useful analogy, but eventually the "or" version became the dominant one, and hardly anyone even recognizes the image of the farmer, the donkey, and the cart anymore.

Interesting. When I was first taught it in school in Ireland in the early eighties, it was referred to as 'carrot and stick measures' - i.e. a mixed bag of inducements to do something: carrots to make it attractive to act in the desired way, and the punitive stick to punish those whom the carrot did not motivate, thus:

https://i1.wp.com/earthconservant.c...02/carrot-and-stick-donkey.png?resize=825,510

There was a documentary on the Beeb years ago called Carrots and Sticks, which had two teams put through military training and a series of team-challenges. If the 'Carrot' team won they were rewarded, while if the Stick tam lost they were punished. It was almost a dead heat; the sticks only won overall in the end as the carrots lost their leader to injury and lost all morale.

 

[Zombie_61]

A lot of these words and phrases become so common that eventually they do become acceptable...

One word stands out in my mind as an example of this: irregardless. At my last job my immediate supervisor always used this word in place of "regardless", and every time he did it somehow made him sound less intelligent (and he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with). He wasn't alone, of course--so many people over the years have used "irregardless" in place of "regardless" that Merriam-Webster Dictionary finally conceded and added it as a nonstandard form of the word "regardless". Once again, the idiots of the world win.

 

[Edward]

I had a lecturer at university who said "pacific" instead of "specific". I think that's a common dialect thing in some parts of the UK. My own particular howler is that, in attempting to speak French, I keep thinking 'a la Britagne' instead of 'a les Anglais' - entirely different beasts!

 

[Formeruser012523]

One word stands out in my mind as an example of this: irregardless. At my last job my immediate supervisor always used this word in place of "regardless", and every time he did it somehow made him sound less intelligent (and he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with). He wasn't alone, of course--so many people over the years have used "irregardless" in place of "regardless" that Merriam-Webster Dictionary finally conceded and added it as a nonstandard form of the word "regardless". Once again, the idiots of the world win.

Posted about this last night but deleted it because my autocorrect had the word in the list. I was so confused I had to check my Merriam-Webster app and there it was defined. Couldn't believe I was staring at a definition. I had always believed it was a fake word.

 

[tonyb]

One word stands out in my mind as an example of this: irregardless. At my last job my immediate supervisor always used this word in place of "regardless", and every time he did it somehow made him sound less intelligent (and he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with). He wasn't alone, of course--so many people over the years have used "irregardless" in place of "regardless" that Merriam-Webster Dictionary finally conceded and added it as a nonstandard form of the word "regardless". Once again, the idiots of the world win.

Makes me wonder about “redouble,” a perfectly “proper” word but a seeming redundancy nonetheless.

 

[scottyrocks]

One word stands out in my mind as an example of this: irregardless. At my last job my immediate supervisor always used this word in place of "regardless", and every time he did it somehow made him sound less intelligent (and he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with). He wasn't alone, of course--so many people over the years have used "irregardless" in place of "regardless" that Merriam-Webster Dictionary finally conceded and added it as a nonstandard form of the word "regardless". Once again, the idiots of the world win.

When you think about it, language is constantly evolving. Old English of hundreds of years ago is barely recognizable to most of us due to word spelling and usage changes, and it didn't happen overnight.

But yes, adding a prefix that reverses the meaning of a word and then using it to mean the same thing is idiotic.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are some American dialects where the use of a double or triple negative is actually a valid intensifier: "He don't wan't nothin' from nobody nohow!" A sentence like that might cause Sherwin Cody to writhe in dismay, but it clearly expresses the desired statement. "Irregardless" may have its origin in such a dialect -- a word used to express the same idea as "regardless" but with additional emphasis.