Usage: nauseous and nauseated

lorna_w

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Since my early 20's, when I first read about the difference between the meaning of the two words, I've kept the distinction (and corrected many people in conversation, to their extreme irritation). Doing a search today, I found that the usage is now considered changed. Apparently if enough people are wrong for long enough, wrong becomes right in some Orwellian event. (Do NOT tell me irregardless is now a word. I simply won't have it.)

Anyway, do you have more information on this change in usage? Tell me it ain't so, Joe.
 

Snick

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There are better things to feel sick about.
 
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Once!

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Language evolves. If it didn't we'd still be writing in anglo-saxon.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nau1.htm

We can either grumble about it or rejoice in it. Personally, I like the fact that language is constantly shifting, changing, adapting, morphing.

The trick, I find, is not to be too preachy about right and wrong definitions. A word means whatever common usage says it means.
 

SomethingOrOther

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I spent a few seconds perusing that link and it's literally preggers with good stuff.
 

raburrell

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Somebody finally clued me in on this one about a year ago - I generally use it correctly now, but I confess, I prefer the sound of nauseous to nauseated. It often fits better rhythmically when I need it too. I wouldn't be sorry to see a change in common usage.
 

Cliffhanger

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Merriam-Webster lists 'nauseous' as either causing nausea, or being affected with nausea.

While it lists 'nauseate' as to become affected with nausea, to feel disgust, or as a transitive verb, to affect with nausea or disgust.

So they're interchangeable. There's also a note about how people thinking nauseous is an error but nauseated is correct are wrong.

Link here. It's most likely a matter of prescriptive vs descriptive grammar, but it could also have been a simple style choice that was erroneously elevated to the status of a rule, such as splitting infinitives or ending a sentence with a preposition.

Just remember, once a language stops changing, it dies.
 

boron

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Here's one 2006 article on pubmed:

QUOTES:

According to Burchfield, in British English nauseated means feeling sick and nauseous means disgusting, but in American English nauseous has tended to replace nauseated, while nauseating has replaced nauseous."

Wilson Follett, in his Modern American Usage (1966), wrote: “When we have two adjectives, nauseous and nauseated, it should be clear that the first applies to the substance that causes the state named in the second. To call oneself nauseous, except in self-depreciation, is to ignore the point of view of the word.”

And Strunk and White in The Elements of Style (3rd edition, 1979) wrote: “Do not say `I feel nauseous', unless you are sure you have that effect on others.
 

Once!

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I wonder if there's something here about American English following rules?

As a general rule, US English tends to be more rules based. So if we say "in front of", we must also be able to say "in back of". "Schedule" is pronounced "skedule" and not "shedule", because the "sch" in "school" is pronounced "skool". And let's not even get started on loootenant.

By contrast, UK English tends to have more exceptions. Spellings, meanings and pronunciation are based on history rather than rules. Lieutenant is pronounced "leftenant", because it just is.

I remember a fantastic argument on an aviation website about Concorde. There were several Concorde aircraft built, but the tradition is to call them all "Concorde". You don't say "a concorde".

Several American posters on this website just could not get their heads around this. They argued that you don't say "I saw Boeing 747 fly by" so you should not say "I saw Concorde fly by."

The Brits argued the opposite. It's Concorde, because it just is. The argument swirled backwards and forwards, and eventually became acrimonious as some accused the Brits of being arrogant, and others said that people were being deliberately obtuse and ... you get the picture. In the end, the admins closed the thread for good.

Meanwhile I was desparately trying to register for that website so that I could point out that both sides of the argument were right. US English likes to follow rules, so it's perfectly understandable that an exception like "Concorde" looks odd to them. But UK English allows for exceptions, which is why the Brits saw nothing wrong with "Concorde".

Sadly I wasn't fast enough and the disagreement was left unresolved when the admins closed the thread.

What seems to have happened here is that the UK English definitions of nauseous and nauseated have been "corrected" by US English so that they fit into the rules more closely. There's nothing wrong with that - it just reflects the different way that the two versions of English work.

I write in UK English for work, but I slip into US English on international websites. Neither is right or wrong - just regional variations of a common language which is not quite as common as many people think.
 

Bufty

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I write in UK English for work, but slip into US English on international web sites.


I just post in plain English and trust other speakers of English understand what I'm saying - they usually do.
 
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Sarah Madara

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I have known the difference since I was a kid (because I was a nerdy kid who read Strunk & White in 4th grade), but I think that battle was lost long ago and I don't give a second thought to breaking the rules. Common usage sounds normal to me and there is never a risk of being misunderstood, at least not by an American under the age of 90.
 

Bufty

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'Usually' means standard or habitual. ;)

... The bit that interests me is how to go from "usually" to "nearly always".
 

Jamesaritchie

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The distinction certainly hasn't change din my circles, and I know you can still cause most editors to scream if you mix them up.
 

MattW

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My wife clued me in to the differences. I had never heard of it in almost 30 years, and English is her 3rd language.

Still feels wrong, but I guess I'm an old dog with old tricks.
 

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I think that it might be easier if one were to look at the suffixes and consider what those add to the base 'nausea'.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Language evolves. If it didn't we'd still be writing in anglo-saxon.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nau1.htm

We can either grumble about it or rejoice in it. Personally, I like the fact that language is constantly shifting, changing, adapting, morphing.

The trick, I find, is not to be too preachy about right and wrong definitions. A word means whatever common usage says it means.

I have no problem with a living, breathing language. Usage changing through the passage of time is one thing. Changing it because of ignorance to word meaning is another. A lot of people say "ain't" and a lot of people say "irregardless" bit I have no intention of adopting either in my writing.
 

Once!

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A lot of people say "ain't" and a lot of people say "irregardless" bit I have no intention of adopting either in my writing.

Except in reported speech, presumably?

Or a story told in the first person?

Or a pastiche in a particular style?

Or in your last post?

As Richard Carlsson has made a fortune out of saying, "don't sweat the small stuff". Now, as far as I am concerned, that phrase is grammatically incorrect. But I somehow managed to throttle back my outrage and not fire off an indignant letter demanding that it be corrected.

But we shouldn't sweat the small stuff. And this really is small stuff. Language evolves. Our job as writers is to be aware of that process of evolution, to use it, to be sympathetic to it and - in very rare cases - to be an agent of change ourselves.
 

Bufty

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:Ssh: Busy throttling back...
 

Jonathan Dalar

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Here's one 2006 article on pubmed:

QUOTES:

According to Burchfield, in British English nauseated means feeling sick and nauseous means disgusting, but in American English nauseous has tended to replace nauseated, while nauseating has replaced nauseous."

Wilson Follett, in his Modern American Usage (1966), wrote: “When we have two adjectives, nauseous and nauseated, it should be clear that the first applies to the substance that causes the state named in the second. To call oneself nauseous, except in self-depreciation, is to ignore the point of view of the word.”

And Strunk and White in The Elements of Style (3rd edition, 1979) wrote: “Do not say `I feel nauseous', unless you are sure you have that effect on others.

lol language evolves and if your using all the old ways their just going to pass you bye, its just the way are world works.

Or, in clearer terms: Just because common usage dictates something does not mean it is the correct way for a language to evolve. And just because something is derived from old usage does not mean it's out of date.

Sorry for the headache, but I think my point was made.
 

Sarah Madara

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I have no problem with a living, breathing language. Usage changing through the passage of time is one thing. Changing it because of ignorance to word meaning is another. A lot of people say "ain't" and a lot of people say "irregardless" bit I have no intention of adopting either in my writing.

The misuse of the word nauseous crosses social and class boundaries, and that is what makes it different from "ain't".
 

Once!

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'Usually' means standard or habitual. ;)

That precisely the point! "Usually" can mean standard or habitual. It can also mean "most of the time", which is not quite the same thing.

When we get too hidebound by "correct" meanings of words, we miss out on the nuances and richness of language. And if writers aren't interested in the subtlety of language, what hope is there?
 

lorna_w

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It gets to the point, though, where I wonder why we have definitions for words at all, if we are to allow and smile at and quickly change the dictionary for words simply used wrong. I think, too, of how people use "literally" when they clearly mean "figuratively" but somehow want emphasis. "I was swimming the English Channel when I literally hit a wall, man," and I'll think "the Chunnel?" Clearly, the speaker did not literally punch some plaster, so "literally" is just the wrong word.

And if it's a class-based attitude, for the record I live on 300 US dollars per month, no food stamps or assistance of any sort, so maybe it's just us poor people who think, in such cases, of Lewis Carroll:

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
 

Sarah Madara

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It gets to the point, though, where I wonder why we have definitions for words at all, if we are to allow and smile at and quickly change the dictionary for words simply used wrong. I think, too, of how people use "literally" when they clearly mean "figuratively" but somehow want emphasis. "I was swimming the English Channel when I literally hit a wall, man," and I'll think "the Chunnel?" Clearly, the speaker did not literally punch some plaster, so "literally" is just the wrong word.
"Literally" is confusing, because while I'm sure some people do use it without understanding the mistake, I'm fairly sure that in my small circle of friends, we know exactly what we are doing. For instance, a conversation with my husband might go like this:
Me: "I couldn't swim another stroke. I literally hit a wall."
Husband: "Literally, huh?"
Me: "That's right. I don't know what idiot decided to put a wall in the middle of my lane, but it sucked."

And now you all know how corny my marriage is. Sorry.

ETA: Of course we don't usually call it out like that. I might say "I'm so hungry I could literally eat a horse," and the wrongness is the point, because of course I couldn't eat an entire horse. The "literally" is just some added hyperbole, saying "No, no! I REALLY mean it." It's emphasis, usually as a joke, but it doesn't come from a misunderstanding.

It's the same as if I said, "You might think it would kill me, but I'm telling you, I'm hungry enough that I really could eat an entire horse. I kid you not. Bring me a horse. I dare you." Saying that doesn't mean that I don't understand that an entire horse won't fit in my stomach. I'm being silly. "Literally" is the same thing for me, just more efficient.

And if it's a class-based attitude, for the record I live on 300 US dollars per month, no food stamps or assistance of any sort, so maybe it's just us poor people who think, in such cases, of Lewis Carroll:

I think people tend to judge each other by how they speak, and some words are triggers for that judgment more than others. I could see "ain't" harming my chances in a job interview more than "nauseous," assuming that I had a legitimate reason to be discussing nausea at all.

My guess is that it's less likely that the dictionary will get changed for words that still trigger discrimination (remember all the uproar over ebonics in school?), but it's really just a guess.
 
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Kitty Pryde

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I feel like the main issue is that when someone says "I feel nauseous," there are two responses.

Response A: Here's a plastic bag, friend.

Response B: Don't you mean nauseated? Unless you mean that you are a person who makes other people sick to their stomach, which I assume you don't, as we are currently on a boat in heavy seas, so-- *conversational partner throws up all over them*

And thus it is more profitable to always accept this particular usage, however wrong we feel it to be.