There's a word that's been creeping up a lot lately in a way that bugs me: "ally." Whether someone's an ally, what you have to do to be an ally. Then there's "allyship", which I'm not even sure is word.
Why does this bother me? A couple of reasons. First there's the unnecessary militarization of everyday life. Also, while the word is used in ever more contexts now, it's almost always the singular "ally" rather than the plural "allies." Is the relationship supposed to be one-sided? That's how it sounds.
Luckily, you don't hear much of any of this in real life. Unluckily, there's not as much real life as there used to be.
2 comments:
Is it supposed to mean someone who agrees with you? I admit I find the word being used out of its usual context pretty confusing too.
Then again, I find myself at a dead stop fairly often when I read through comments in different forums. Some examples that come to mind are:
The word 'rein' being used when someone writes about a monarchy or 'reign' when talking about how to control a horse.
Then there's 'here, here' instead of 'hear, hear'.
How about those who don't understand the difference between 'cite', 'site' and 'sight'.
Is it a simple misspelling when someone writes 'supposably' rather than 'supposedly' or are they being deliberately obtuse?
I also feel irritated by those who don't understand there's a difference between 'cue' and 'queue'.
Lastly (I could go on) reading the phrase 'towing the line' when what's meant is 'toeing the line' - teetering on the edge of going too far - is one I've seen so often I can almost ignore it.. almost.
The problem as I see it, and I'm sure this is true for you as well, is that it's unfortunate that people are becoming less and less able to understand the meaning and historical roots of words they can't spell and phrases they can't interpret.
This Washington State University website is a pretty cool resource.
In effect it seems to mean "agrees with you" or even "agrees with what you should think" if it's being said by a third party.
In historical terms widespread literacy is pretty new. Perhaps it was inevitable that it would become, for all intents and purposes, widespread post-literacy.
There's also in a lot of cases an interest in propagandizing, or in not really being understood. Again, something Orwell understood very well.
That's an interesting site. I like the entry for "accent marks." The unfortunate thing about "résumé" losing its marks is that it starts to look exactly like the verb "resume".
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