Words That May Not Mean What You Think They Mean

"You keep using that word," Inigo Montoya says to Vizzini in The Princess Bride. "I do not think it means what you think it means."

The word that Vizzini so frequently misuses in the film is inconceivable. But it's not hard to imagine other words that hold different meanings for different people. Meanings that may even be contradictory--literally so. Here are just a couple of examples.

• Literally
  In contrast to figuratively, the adverb literally means "in a literal or strict sense--word for word." But many speakers, including the Democratic nominee for Vice President, have a habit of using the word quite unliterally as an intensifier:

  The next president of the United States is going to be delivered to the most significant moment in American history since Franklin Roosevelt. He will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America but literally, literally to change the direction of the world.
  (Senator Joseph Biden, speaking in Springfield, Illinois, August 23, 2008)

  Although most dictionaries recognize the contrary uses of the word, many usage authorities (and SNOOTs) argue that the hyperbolic sense of literally has eroded its literal meaning.



• Fulsome
  If your boss showers you with "fulsome praise," don't presume that a promotion is in the works. Understood in its traditional sense of "offensively flattering or insincere," fulsome has decidedly negative connotations. But in recent years, fulsome has picked up the more complimentary meaning of "full," "generous," or "abundant." So is one definition more correct or appropriate than the other?
  
  Guardian Style (2007), the usage guide for writers on England's Guardian newspaper, describes fulsome as "another example of a word that is almost never used correctly." The adjective means "cloying, excessive, disgusting by excess," says editor David Marsh, "and is not, as some appear to believe, a clever word for full." Nevertheless, both senses of the word appear regularly in the pages of the Guardian. In the past few weeks we've run across critical references to Sarah Palin's "fulsome confidence in her own charm" and to the "fulsome imagery" in a turgid novel. But elsewhere in the paper, "fulsome tributes" and "fulsome praise" have been delivered with apparent sincerity.

Of course, it's not unusual for the meanings of words to change over time. Some words (such as nice, which once meant "silly" or "ignorant") even reverse their connotations. What's especially intriguing--though hardly inconceivable--is to observe such changes in our own time.

Continued: A Plethora of Pinatas: More Words That May Not Mean What You Think They Mean

More Words About Words:

• Index of Commonly Confused Words
• 200 Words and Expressions That Tick You Off
• Common Word Roots

Image: Wallace Shawn as Vizzini in The Princess Bride © 1987 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.