Thursday, February 16, 2006

It' s not what you say, it's how you say it!


This post is brought to you by my favorite comic strip artist Jef Mallet, creator of FRAZZ - The guy is a freaking genius and I highly recommend his new book. It's only $8 and more than well worth it. Tell your friends. Seriously, it's Awesome! Everyone I know uses the phrase "I feel nauseous." to mean they feel sick. That is apparently the wrong usage. From the dictionary: nau·seous adj. Causing nausea; sickening: “the most nauseous offal fit for the gods” Usage Problem. Affected with nausea. Usage Note: Traditional critics have insisted that nauseous is properly used only to mean “causing nausea” and that it is incorrect to use it to mean “affected with nausea,” as in Roller coasters make me nauseous. In this example, nauseated is preferred by 72 percent of the Usage Panel. Curiously, though, 88 percent of the Panelists prefer using nauseating in the sentence The children looked a little green from too many candy apples and nauseating (not nauseous) rides. Since there is a lot of evidence to show that nauseous is widely used to mean “feeling sick,” it appears that people use nauseous mainly in the sense in which it is considered incorrect. In its “correct” sense it is being supplanted by nauseating.

I love it when I find out that something that EVERYONE says is totally grammatically wrong. It gives me hope that SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE is paying attention. :-) Cheers!

8 comments:

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

Is "blowing chunks" in the dictionary?

Theresa said...

How many panelists have to agree to disagree before the dictionary makes changes and additions.

As a rule, I prefer "Crap! I feel like I'm gonna hurl" over the nausea words ... on account of the fact that I'm such a delicate, pristine little flower.

AndyT13 said...

I knew I could count on the ladies to contribute to this post in a tasteful way! Way to go! :-)

Robin said...

Well, I'm guilty as charged. Thanks for the grammar lesson ;)

ZooooM said...

I've actaully been corrected on this a number of times. But, I seem to prefer my errors over being correct gramatically. And it doesn't help that the person who pointed it out to me the first time was (at the time) my boyfriend and he thought he was better than everyone on the planet. And often told me so.

This cartoonist reminds me of the guy who did Calvin & Hobbs.

clew said...

I knew that. Nyah.

I tend to say "I feel like I'm gonna friggin yak" though.

Winterswan said...

Aren't some rules meant to be broken, though? I mean, there has to be room for creativity....

I haven't felt "nauseated" for real in about sixteen or seventeen months, and back then I actually used to say that I felt like a "train wreck".

AndyT13 said...

By the way, I point this out not because I think I'm smarter than everyone else, but rather because I am amused at my own ignorance. If you can't laugh at yourself who can you laugh at? Oh. Everyone else. Right.

And yes, this guy has drawn (pardon the pun) many comparisons with Bill Watterson "The Calvin and Hobbes Guy"