The word "nonplussed"

I think it might be a Merkin thing.

nonplus
: to cause to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do : PERPLEX

I was mostly talking about reading it in print, to be honest. And mostly online. And probably mostly on ILX! Someone on the end of year film thread just used it to mean unimpressed, I think, which is what reminded me. Apologies if I misunderstood them. Anyway, "idiots" is a bit harsh! It's normal to learn meanings from the context in which other people use them.

maybe the REAL question is why it took so long for people to start using 'meh'?

I've used it ever since to mean surprised, at a loss, rendered speechless, etc. I've occasionally heard it used incorrectly, but it's a word you seldom hear, so I haven't paid much mind.

Are we saying that this is becoming a popular word, but only if used incorrectly? Like people who pronouce forte as "fortay?"

Are you not being a bit disingenuous hre, Alba? OED's second defintion of nonplussed is "N. Amer. informal unperturbed". I've certainly been aware of that meaning at least as long as the other one.

I didn't believe it.

(xpost to Alba)

xpost - oh, I hadn't thought about the Italian musical thing! I feel vindicated.

Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

(xpost to myself)

See also: pianoforte (Italian etym.)

"My, that's a nice piano-"fortay" you've got there."

cachay/fortay's alright by me as well actually. if ppl insist on dropping flowerbomb words in conversation then they can at least have the sense of humour to not make it sound like theyre talking about some money, or a castle.

Nonplussed is definitely a US/UK thing. As a US person surrounded by definition #2, I have to exert a small conscious effort to use #1 correctly, but I always succeed. I think it takes on a sort of hybrid meaning for some people: confused and unperturbed and not particularly pleased. "I was fairly nonplussed when nobody came to the airport to meet me, but I knew the way to the house, so I took a cab."

"Cryptography is one of my 'fortays'" makes much more sense.

Is this true? In French, you could say that something isn't your fort (not forte, but I assumed that forte came from Italian where forte has the same sense of 'skill, aptitude, or strength'.

I just got into a family argument about 'penultimate' the other day. Sheesh!

No one says that!

Cryptography is my forte.

I think the bastardization of the word is therefore expected and acceptable. It's too intrinsically linked with the Italian pronunciation, therefore what can you do?

i always figured "forTAY" was intentional fake-french, like saying garbage as garBAAAAAHZH, only solidified into near-officialdom.

plus i've only ever heard it used, contextually, in the negative, as in, "not really my forte." you don't say it about something you are actually good at, do you?

x-post

Yes. One syllable. But the word cachet (pronounced cachay) confuses people, I think.

and sounds funnier.

I do not accept the bastardization of forte. That's my personal stand against the darkness.

Laurel: by a tenth.

I think I go back and forth between "nitch" and "neesh." Whatever comes out, but probably more commonly "nitch."

Lots of Americans also enclose that second comma of yours within the quotation, too.

Fair enough! I do agree with tsk, though. It just sounds way more ridiculous, therefore it needs to be a part of my lexicon.

I like to say "creVASSE" for crevice, because it just sounds ludicrous.

How do you mean? If it came to us from the Italians (who pronounce it as two syllables) then fortay would be more obviously right, I guess. But it apparently came from the French, who pronounce it as one.

there are better synonyms though so you need not use it at all really

I actually saw a breakdown of a dictionary's usage panel in the Times the other day addressing "niche" -- they were 50/50 on the Frenchy way versus the bastard way. The bothersome thing was that one of them argued for "nitch" by saying "My parents were academics and so I go out of my way to always use the 'lower' pronunctiation so that nobody thinks I'm being pretentious" -- WTF, your personal self-consciousness issues are maybe not the best guide for dictionary pronunciation!!!

every time i read an american newspaper and see all those commas inside the quotation marks, and have to think that they are there not just because of a typo or an error but because ANOTHER PEDANT DID THAT TO THE POOR THINGS, i get very annoyed.

(ooh, "click" for "clique" annoys me too)

Using "decimate" correctly is a great way to nonpluss people.

Lex, we talked about that comma thing once, and I was saying the UK way probably did make more logical sense, right up until I learned that you guys put the commas inside quotations for any number of random things, like dialogue. We're consistent, at least!

XP: Missile can have three syllables?

we are consistent!! if you're quoting the entire sentence or phrase you are also quoting the punctuation mark it closes with, so it goes inside the quotation marks. if you're quoting it in part you don't and it doesn't.

My (academic) parents always said "foy-err," so "foy-AY" always strikes me as faintly pretentious, even when not intended to be so.

fort/e is the adjective of La force = strength, force

I think it's just been mixed up in English over hundreds of years.

The OED says:

[a. F. fort, absolute use of fort strong: see FORT a. As in many other adoptions of Fr. adjs. used as ns., the fem. form has been ignorantly substituted for the masc.; cf. locale, morale (of an army), etc.]

"Give us a bloody fag," said Nigel.

And not any of these:

"Give us a bloody fag", said Nigel.
"Give us a bloody fag.", said Nigel.
"Give us a bloody fag" said Nigel.

really i think it's fake-french like "gar-BAAZH," just less obviously precious and incorrect

"Give us a bloody fag," said Nigel.

this is correct in the uk! because it's a whole phrase which is being quoted!

but:

nigel said he wanted a "bloody fag".

because that's only part of it. surely this is logical?

"Give us a bloody fag," said Nigel, "and shut your trap while you're at it".

hang on, yes it is! i was aware of forte the musical term meaning loud WAY before i was aware of forte the word meaning strength

Slightly off-topic: I never understood why a country with so much historical antipathy toward the French would use the words "courgette" and "aubergine" instead of zucchini and eggplant.

I say "nitch." The NY Times had a li'l usage feature a week or two back, and the panel was split between It's A French Word vs. I Don't Want to Sound Affected.

Xpost no I guess my point was that a comma isn't really part of what Nigel said -- he used a period there. Like I said, the UK way probably has strict logic in its favor, but that's one of those situations where ... not so much. The strict logic of "we only quote what was actually said" would suggest a usage like:

"Give us a bloody fag." said Nigel.

Because Nigel ended his sentence there, with a period.

however, if you've never studied the piano (for example), it would be a completely foreign concept (no pun intended) to use "for-tay". It's not like saying, "I'm gonna go out and buy me a for-tay of malt liquor." It's a more friendlier "for-tey".

No, no it isn't. Nabisco has the main of it here.

for-TAY: incorrect faux-french word, means strength, used as a precious fancy-pants way of saying something you're good at. "web zen is my forte [e wit accent here]"

The courgette/zucchini distinction doesn't really bother me that much, because you guys took the French term and we took the Italian one, no big whoop -- but "eggplant," in its Anglo-Saxon practicality, totally sounds like a word Britishers would use.

The English may have antipathy for the French but their cooking, espcially aristocratic cooking, has undoubtedly been influenced by French cusine and they probably use those words because they were introduced by the French.

Compose v. comprise?
Imply v. infer?

Ailsa, in my perception, "clique" has already been lost. The war is over. I think "forte" is not quite so cut-and-dried yet, so I hold my ground on it. I don't correct people in public, though, I know it's ultimately probably hopeless.

yo yo, if the OED recognizes it, i wouldn't call it a "faux-french" word, but that's just me.

Italian/English
forte:
Definition | in context | images
NEW!

forte:
Principal Translations/Traduzioni principali:
forte (generale) adj strong (in general)
forte (potente) adj powerful (physical power)

Additional Translations/Traduzioni aggiuntive:
forte (grave) severe (heavy rain, severe thunderstorm)
forte (rif a fraffreddore) bad (bad cold)
forte (abile) adj able (strong)
forte (colloq. (simpatico)) adj groovy (colloquial)
forte (combattivo) adj pugnacious (powerful)
forte (duro) adj hard (strong)
forte (forte, duro) adj tough (strong)
forte (forte, musicale) adj forte (mus: in forte)
forte (imponente) adj overpowering (strong)
forte (pepato, piccante) adj peppery (piquant)
forte (potente) adj puissant (strong)
forte (potente) adj potent (strong)
forte (rigido) adj stiff (powerful)
forte (voce) adj deep (strong)
forte (volume) adj loud (volume)
forte (forte, abilità) nm forte
forte (militare) nm fort (milit.)

French/English
fort:
en español | in context | images
verb conjugator

fort:
Principal Translations:
fort adj robust (vigorous)
fort adj solid (strong)

Additional Translations:
fort adj thick (coarse)
fort adj substantial (strong)
fort adj sturdy (tough)
fort adj strong (powerful)
fort adj big (strong)
fort adj overweight
fort adj hard (strong)
fort adj heavy (accent)
fort adj heavy (strongly built)
fort adj heavy-duty
fort adj knockout (hard)
fort adj loud (noisy)
fort adj mighty (having strength)
fort adj mighty (powerful)
fort adj muscular (muscular)
fort adj powerful
fort adj well-built (muscular)
fort adj forte
fort adj powerful (forceful)
fort adj deep (strong)
fort adj athletic (muscular)
fort adj burly
fort adj chubby
fort (accent) adj strong
fort (accent) adj pronounced
fort (accent, propension) adj marked
fort (autoritaire, contraignant - régime) adj strongarm
fort (boisson mixture) adj potent
fort (bruit) adj large
fort (café, thé, moutarde, tabac, odeur) adj strong
fort (carton, loupe, tranquillisant) adj strong
fort (concentration) adj high (concentration)
fort (consonne - Linguistique) adj hard (consonant)
fort (corps, bras, jambes) adj muscular (muscular)
fort (courant, jet) adj strong
fort (d'une grande résistance morale) adj steadfast
fort (de grand impact - argument) adj powerful (moving)
fort (de grand impact - argument) adj weighty
fort (de grand impact - argument) adj forcible
fort (de grand impact - oeuvre, film) adj powerful (strong)
fort (différence, influence) adj great
fort (épais corpulent - jambes) adj thick
fort (épais corpulent - jambes) adj big
fort (épais corpulent - personne) adj stout
fort (épais corpulent - personne) adj large
fort (fièvre, taux) adj high (fever, taxes)
fort (formation, verbe - Linguistique) adj strong
fort (hanches) adj large
fort (hanches) adj wide
fort (hanches) adj broad
fort (hausse) adj large
fort (important quantitativement - dénivellation) adj steep
fort (important quantitativement - dénivellation) adj pronounced
fort (intense - amour, haine) adj strong
fort (intense : sentiment) adj intense (strong)
fort (météorologie) adj rough (sea)
fort (monnaie) adj strong
fort (monnaie) adj hard
fort (personne, corps) adj well-built (muscular)
fort (puissant - syndicat, parti, économie) adj strong
fort (puissant - syndicat, parti, économie) adj mighty (powerful)
fort (puissant - syndicat, parti, économie) adj powerful
fort (somme) adj large
fort (somme) adj big
fort (vigoureux - personne, bras) adj strong (bearing strength)
fort (vigoureux - vent) adj strong
fort (vigoureux - vent) adj high (strong wind)
fort adv loud
fort adv much
fort adv most
fort adv forte (music)
fort adv loudly
fort nm stronghold (fortified structure)
fort nm fort (defensive structure)
fort nm forte (specialty)

Ha -- did you use "no truck with" on purpose? You used it correctly, but I'm still getting used to this meaning, because it's misused all the time to mean "no problem with."

fort nm forte (specialty)

AHH. That hurts my brain.

M.White thanks for the reiteration -- I was sitting here googling trying to figure out if the French used it the noun way, but you'd already solved that one. Reading upthread is my, umm, fy-blee-ZAY.

(re. "no truck with" no, I didn't, it's a phrase I use a lot anyway. It never occurred to me that people would use it any other way. Like I said, these threads constantly surprise me)

AHH. That hurts my brain.

yeah mainly cos that should say "speciality"!

The Word “Liaise,” as in “He Will Liaise with Marketing.”

This cannot cannot cannot be a word. Why? Because it is just damned unpleasant. Which of course never got in the way of such hits as “moist” and “loincloth,” but this unfortunate formulation just rubs a cheese grater on the back of our frontal lobes every time we hear it. But wait!, you protest. The Merriam-Webster Online states that “liaise” is an example of a “back-formation,” through which a new word is extracted from another, perfectly legitimate word on the assumption that it must exist, etymologically, although it does not.6 Coming from “liaison,” of course. Apparently the verb “to edit” is a similar thing, cruelly wrenched from the bowels of “editor,” which is of course a real word. We have no truck with “edit,” which makes us inconsistent, but we don’t give a damn. Our only true love is beauty, and “edit” is not the aesthetic abortion “liaise” is, so we let it slide. We do not stand on principle except when it behooves our short-term goals. Obviously.

orig. latinate meaning of "hidden, shadowed" not the popular "unknown, esoteric"

The recognition isn't an official endorsement. Often it's more along the lines of, "hey, here's some fucked-up shit that morans are saying nowadays."

Yeah yeah, but the OED recognises it as "means strong, French root pronounce it as the Italian (FOR-tay)" Or as Fortee/Fort.

Lots of folks in Middle TN use the double modal of, "I might could..."

i.e. "I might could go to the store."

I love it.

xpost: "no truck" turns up in LA Confidential! Ex-con: "I don't truck with no sissies"

Since in all three languages we could use a native word for 'strength', I find 'forte' of little use in English. If you come across a term or it has been introduced to your language from another, i.e. schadenfreude, saute, amok, then its use seems less pretentious and certainly more justified to me.

Is this a good time to throw 'garage' into the mix?

Everything I can find also appears to treat this as a derivation, not as a loan-word, which is interesting.

Andrew, I don't think so. We only had the choice of Spanish or German at my (admittedly quite small) school.

x-post

I feel like it is kind of confusing, though. I can easily see how someone could elide the following: "don't truck with" = "don't deal with" = "don't have dealings with" = "don't have issues with."

Not Kwixot, by the way.

Re "cliche": 1 (Southern, poss rural) or 2 (Northern) but never 3.

For example, Southern boys (ahem) calling their mothers, or girlfriends "ma'am" when being polite, esp. in situations where they know they need to get off their ass (i.e. clearing the table after dinner).

A) Are familiar with the word nonplussed, and
B) Don't know what it means.

I'm fucking nonplussed, I tell you.

I'm also fond of "bless yer heart" when someone is really just calling you a poor bastard.

Did you know that apart from its original sense of 'plate' as in printing or engraving, it means 'snapshot' in French?

I also think "might could" is perfectly fine.

"Might could" is perfectly fine! I love it, actually.

Yes, but I have no idea how to make that accent appear.

Like "Jacques SHEER-ack."

FOR-tay is. Opposite stress.

The connoisseur's "fixing to" = "finna." (Possibly the only word in my life I've failed to follow when used by an elderly relative and then later figured out from rap CDs.)

Right, of course. I like things for their potential linguistic freakishness (See also: the Pittsburgh accent). It doesn't necessarily have to be correct grammatically for me to appreciate it. No one can argue that "yins" is a proper and grammatically sound word. But it serves its purpose, and if I hear it, I will most certainly become excited like a small child.

-- geoff (gffcnn...), January 4th, 2007 11:08 PM.

As others have said, no! People who pronounce forte (meaning strength, speciality) as two syllables (ie everyone I can every remember hearing in the UK) stress the first syllable. FORT-ay, not fort-AY).

Bizarre (to me) discovery: my (Collins) dictionary says that the musical (ie Italian) forte is prounced FOR-ti, exactly the same as forty. I was sure it was FOR-tay. Is that a missprint?

See, I was thinking, if you didn't know enough French to get an idea about a) how to pronounce a word as French and b) how to tell by looking at a word if it might be, or be from, French, then of course you're going to pronounce niche 'as spelled'. But Cliche sort of clows that theory out of the water. Perhaps it's a density thing, that the pronunciation is more likely to stay original if it's kept word-of-mouth. And let's face it, the first time I heard 'cliche' and understood it, there was barely a day in the next six months that something didn't feel its slap :)

I use Sir/Ma'am to anyone I don't know (as I've usually just stumbled into them :)

Andrew, the thing that should be guiding us in the difference between "niche" and "cliche" is that the latter was always supposed to have an accent!

I hope so, but it is 'FORtay' in Italian.

Clean Alba: that is an English dictionary, not an Italian, correct?

M. White: wasn't jaymc referring to the stress and not the vowel sounds?

Niche is a straight-up noun and cliché is a noun formed from a past participle. None of us are inclined to pronounce cafe as 'kayf' just because it doesn't have its accent, are we?

Paragraph :(

Paragraph :)

Paragraph :)

It think it's clear who the real enemy here is.

Ha - yes. Londoners!

(short for cafe *or* cafeteria, I'd have thought)

Americans have the reputation for flattening vowels, but the British do it a lot, too (cf. my longstanding argument with Mark C. re: "pasta").

What do people mean by 'flattening vowels'?

Oh xpost I meant partly that the accent should differentiate the proper pronunciations of cliche and niche (i.e., they're not just "irregular," the accent explains the difference), but also that it might have helped with the mispronouncing, too? I mean the main thing is that people say "cliche" more often and feel sophisticated and Frenchy about finding things cliche in the first place, whereas up until recently "niche" got used mostly for practical unFrenchy things like holes and stuff. ("Nitch" somehow seems appropriate to a physical niche.) But having the accent there surely helped plenty of people, somewhere along the line, think "oh, this is French, it's clee-SHAY," whereas "niche" lacks that signal that the pronunciation isn't more Germanic.

The BBC seem to be more scrupulous at trying to approximate foreign names and anyway, they're closer to France. I bet we'd be better at correctly pronouncing Mexican places than they would, especially given that they learn Spanish Spanish.

Difference between the A in "father" and "fat" (second is flattened).

XP to Ailsa: oooooh we say ca-FAY here, always and only.

Yes, nabisco, that's right, that's what would trigger the b) that I was talking about. Hmm.

I would like to say now that this is my favourite thread on nu-old-ilx, even as it has tarnished my repsect for almost everyone involved.

I was once scolded as a child for saying "garadj" not "garaje".

(xpost)

Difference between the A in "father" and "fat" (second is flattened)

Gotcha. I think the 'a' in 'father' is said with the mouth wider open and it's a longer sound than the 'a' in 'fat'. The 'a' in 'pasta' in Italian is somewhere between the two (a short sound with the mouth wider than 'fat' but not as wide as 'father') with a sound that doesn't exist in English (but isn't a million miles away from the way I pronounce the 'u' in 'cut'), so when you anglicize 'pasta' you have to approximate it one way or the other. The English go one way, The Merkins go the other.

I don't know if that's better or worse than the Wisconsin thing where they say "sworry about that" and "I'll see you tomworrow."

"Well, it's how it's spelt. Four Tet, isn't it?"

He is ill, poor thing.

if cafe can be short for cafeteria and be right, then caf (as we londoners say) can be short for cafe and be right

before i continue reading.

what on earth was that truck bullshit upthread? how can "have no truck with" EVER mean "have no problem with"?

i'm pretty sure "might could" is a dastardly myth, i've no idea wtf it could possibly mean.

Wasn't it a Shayne Ward single?

isn't it supposed to be 'hold no truck', not 'have no truck'?

Laurel, my addendum was that I've more commonly heard "bless his heart" or "bless his little heart" used in that situation.

My favorite Southernism is putting "done" in front of a past participle for emphasis - "I done did it" or "We done went over there already." For those who like these things there is a massively expensive but gorgeous and painstakingly detailed Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. (A sort-of version of this is online at http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/dictionary/dictionary.html)

The "truck" in "have/hold no truck" comes from the French troquer, meaning to barter. So it's literally "to not have any dealings with". (I learned this last night)

And, yes, I used "literally" deliberately in my sentence this time, because I thought it, was going to discard it, then thought "no, I'll use it because I CAN use it", though I hate people using it improperly.

I'm not sure - I think the almost-u sound may be a dialect thing. Certainly in the south that's what happens, but in the north we pretty much exclusively use a bright, primary short a sound ("cat") in pasta and indeed any other word - the beauty of Italian is that the letters are pronounced exactly as you'd expect and almost never veer away from the correct pronunciation.

Ah, but you don't know how I say 'cut' ;-).

I think it's a bit more complicated than I was saying last night, but it's very difficult to describe without using a)phonetic symbols and b)sweeping generalizations.

". We publish an ENTIRE SERIES OF YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE called "The Clique" novels and do not think for one second that you wouldn't be laughed out of the office for going around asking how those revisions to "the cleek" were coming.

Ha -- did you use "no truck with" on purpose? You used it correctly, but I'm still getting used to this meaning, because it's misused all the time to mean "no problem with."

OMFG i am NEVER going to america.

Lots of folks in Middle TN use the double modal of, "I might could..."

i.e. "I might could go to the store."

ok, that's kind of sweet. where's tn, tennessee?

I had another born'n'raised Nashvillian explain that "bless his heart" is the equivalent of calling someone a poor bastard. "You can say whatever you want that's awful about a person, and then follow it up with a 'bless his heart. It's like pulling out the knife before you puncture the heart.'"

Like loads of people on the thread before me, I'm kind of reeling at the thought that people could possibly use 'non-plussed' to mean anything other than bewildered/bemused/surprised/uncertain as to how to go forward. Especially when it's so satisfying to say things like 'I am at a state of total non-plus'.

Paul [thirstily]: Do you think you can be our designated driver tonight?
Tracer [reluctantly]: Well, I might could.

We do? Give us an example

In other words, that's completely right in North America. I think I personally pronounce niche as neesh and cliché as clih-shay, although I believe I have heard "neetch" fairly often.

I still have no clue how we haven't americanized the spelling of hors d'oeuvres. That has to be the one thing that I can say aloud often and still have to pause when I see it in print because I have no idea what the hell it says.

See, that makes no sense to me. Call it appetizer or whatever, if you will, but if you insist on using the fancy furrin word, leave it be. We've already anglicized it by putting pluralizing 'oeuvres' anyway.

I wasn't nonplussed by the existence of a double modal, just because I've never heard anyone say "might could" before and had no idea how it might could be used.

My wife always thinks it's funny when I say things like "I could do" instead of "I could"!

Not that either the US or UK have any kind of consistent logic on this: with plenty of other verbs we'd just as readily say, e.g., "I could go," or whatever. (Am I right in feeling like the UK will use "do" even if the original verb was something else? Like "hey, can you go to the store?" / "Yeah, I could do." ?)

For a US version of the phenom you describe, nabisco, how about "Will do!"

- "Do you think you could go to the store and pick up some onions?"
- "I could do."
- "Well for god's sake, do it in the toilet and not on my kitchen floor!"

yes. example:

"have they got [x] at the turkish shop?"
"might do. i can check on my way home."

"I could go", in the same position, would be less willing, I think, than 'could do' - It sounds to me like nitpicking, 'i could go (but don't want to)', whereas 'could do' implies 'sure, if you want'.

So, if you say "I could", then what you are really doing is removing the whole phrase "I could [go to the shops for you]", whereas "I could do" is removing the deictic marker, um, the demonstrative "I could do [that]".

I think we think of "do [a thing]" as an inseparable unit: apart from answering questions with "yes, I do," I can't think of many situations where we say the word "do" without following up with the object of the doing!

GB A: It might do.

USA A: It might / It might do that / It could might do that.

"Fancy a pint?"
"Aye, could do, I suppose" = oh, go on then.

"Want to go over the shop and get a pint of milk?"
"Could do" (but I'm not going to because it's cold and I'm watching Coronation Street)

vs

"you know [x] is seeing [y]?"
"go on!"

On the other tip, sadly, we only say stuff like "do go on" when we want to imitate English people, society matrons, Southern belles, or anyone else you could imagine calling a room a "parlor."

Now I wish I could go back to second grade and have a playground argument that goes "could so!" / "could not!" / "could so!" / "could not!" / "could do so!" / "WTF?" / "hahaha I WIN." I will have to settle with leaving work.

wait did i miss an episode?

You: Excuse me sir, your shoelace is untied.
Me: Do what?

The first time I heard that I thought the person I was talking to thought that I had asked her to do something.

Does "Do what?" make me sound like a bumpkin?

http://www.brew-wood.co.uk/comedy/youngones/ASAYLE.JPG

I have to confess to saying cashay for cache. I know it's wrong, yet I *always* forget. I need somebody to delve into my brain and switch a couple of wires around.

An example of something I love about Scottish talk:
The hoovering needs to be done
becomes
The hoovering needs done

I have always made an effort to purge it from my speech, especially after moving to Chicago.

"Hoovering" always sounds strange to me. I don't think USAians use that term at all, do we?

Also, I have always pronounced aunt as 'ahnt' (like the a in father) and not 'ant' like ant.