{"id":70261,"date":"2014-11-05T11:59:08","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T11:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/insight\/carnage-and-compel-words-with-new-meanings\/"},"modified":"2014-11-05T11:59:08","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T11:59:08","slug":"carnage-and-compel-words-with-new-meanings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/carnage-and-compel-words-with-new-meanings\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnage and compel: A look at words with new meanings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Following our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/insight\/apprentice-company-names\/\">blog on The Apprentice<\/a> and the misuse of the word \u2018decadence\u2019, we had a good look at the way people write and realised that our society is littered with people using words that don\u2019t mean what they think they mean or have a meaning that has changed over time.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>An \u2018acyrologia\u2019 is an inexact, inappropriate or improper use of a word. You can find them all over the place; in newspapers, on billboards and even in company names. On The Apprentice \u2018decadence\u2019 was used to represent ten years, as the girls thought it was a clever play on the word decade. It actually means: \u2018moral or cultural decline as characterised by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury\u2019. Certainly not what they intended.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Here are some other words often used in the wrong way or a modern context.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Carnage \u2013 used wrongly<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Widely used by sports reporters to describe a passage of play or a match where one side clearly outplays the other. You\u2019ll see it regularly on the back pages of newspapers but it actually means something far worse than a bad sporting defeat.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A BBC Sport reporter recently wrote this about Celtic\u2019s 6-0 defeat of Partick Thistle in the Scottish Football Premier League: \u201cAs the carnage unfolded, Griffiths arrived on the scene and headed an Izaguirre cross past Scott Fox.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The real meaning of carnage? The killing of a large number of people.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Enormity \u2013 evolved meaning<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>When George W Bush Senior was elected President of the USA in 1989 he said that he \u201ccouldn\u2019t believe the enormity of the situation\u201d.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The original meaning of the word enormity meant \u2018extreme evil\u2019 or \u2018a grave crime or sin\u2019 e.g. the enormities of war. Now, we might know it to more commonly mean \u2018immenseness\u2019 or \u2018vastness\u2019.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Chronic \u2013 used wrongly<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Many people describe a strong or particularly bad pain as being \u2018chronic\u2019 but the word actually refers to a pain, illness or condition that has lasted a long time or keeps returning.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Compel \u2013 used wrongly<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Normally used to suggest that you felt like you had to do something, e.g. \u201cI felt compelled to go and visit my mother.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It actually means to force (somebody) to do something, often by pressure or force.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Instant \u2013 evolved meaning\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Nowadays, when you hear the word \u2018instant\u2019 you assume that whatever it is referring to will be quick. But the original meaning of the noun meant a precise moment in time. Google Instant is a great example of a brand using the word with its newer meaning.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Can you think of any other words that are used incorrectly or have had their definition changed? Share them with us via Twitter &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/strattoncraig\">@strattoncraig<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following our blog on The Apprentice and the misuse of the word \u2018decadence\u2019, we had a good look at the way people write and realised that our society is littered with people using words that don\u2019t mean what they think they mean or have a meaning that has changed over time. An \u2018acyrologia\u2019 is an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copywriting-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Carnage and compel: A look at words with new meanings - Stratton Craig - Global Copywriting &amp; Content Marketing Agency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/carnage-and-compel-words-with-new-meanings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carnage and compel: A look at words with new meanings - Stratton Craig - Global Copywriting &amp; Content Marketing Agency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following our blog on The Apprentice and the misuse of the word \u2018decadence\u2019, we had a good look at the way people write and realised that our society is littered with people using words that don\u2019t mean what they think they mean or have a meaning that has changed over time. 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