Things you hate people saying

Exacerbate vs. Exasperate

Exacerbate is frequently confused with exasperate, and with good reason. Not only do these words resemble one another in spelling and pronunciation, they also at one time held exceedingly similar meanings. Exasperate is today most commonly used as a synonym of annoy, but for several hundred years it also had the meanings “to make more grievous” and “to make harsh or harsher.” Exacerbate is now the more common choice of these two words when one seeks to indicate that something is becoming increasingly bitter, violent, or unpleasant. It comes in part from the Latin word acer, meaning “sharp,” whereas exasperate is from asper, the Latin word for “rough.”

ex·as·per·ate

1. To make very angry or impatient; annoy greatly. 2. To increase the gravity or intensity of: "a scene . that exasperates his rose fever and makes him sneeze" (Samuel Beckett).

exacerbate

1. to make (pain, disease, emotion, etc) more intense; aggravate.

2. to exasperate or irritate (a person)[C17: from Latin exacerbāre to irritate, from acerbus bitter]

Good post! And good points, however in current usage I think the people saying exasperate do actually mean the current sense of exacerbate.

And that is the whole problem. Its all very well language growing and developing, but these kinds of words are being intoduced into, for example, legal documents and official pronouncements and can change the whole meaning. Language has to be able to be reliably understood to be of use beyond grunting at each other!

I just wrote a long reply then decided it was OT for this forum, so cancelled it. Essentially I was saying that a word changing meaning over a 600 year period, and words changing meaning every day as people on the internet interpret them as they choose or mistakenly understand them, are not quite the same thing.

Do you remember in the 80s when they ordered tracksuits with "OYLIMPIC" on the back? 🤣

Now Mr Deregos, just relax your knees, keep bent over and try and stop all this nervous clenching.

"Thinking outside the box", when they don't even know the meaning of the phrase…

Some genuine corporate nonsense from a meeting this morning.

"Okay, so I'll take ownership of this going forward. I'll reach out to xxxxx and bring the state of play to the table tomorrow."

Why wouldn't they just use normal English, and say you're all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Loved by knobends to make them appear more intelligent than they actually are.

"For me,.…". if you're talking and expressing an opinion, then I'm happy to assume it's your opinion.

Women beginning sentences with "as a woman..."