pipistrellafelix (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pipistrellafelix) wrote2006-12-01 06:55 pm
pipistrellafelix) wrote2006-12-01 06:55 pm
Entry tags:
i'm feeling a little chalant...
Intellectually I know that "nonplussed" means perplexed, bewildered, to be thrown by something. But it sounds so much like "nonchalant" that whenever I read or write the word "nonplussed" it doesn't mean to me what it ought to.
Possibly because if one were "plussed"--although that's not a word in that sense, but then neither is "chalant"--if one were "plussed," I feel like it ought to be a synonym for "perturbed."
Fortunately English isn't based on what I feel like words should mean. It still throws me, though. (One might say I was...nonplussed.)
Possibly because if one were "plussed"--although that's not a word in that sense, but then neither is "chalant"--if one were "plussed," I feel like it ought to be a synonym for "perturbed."
Fortunately English isn't based on what I feel like words should mean. It still throws me, though. (One might say I was...nonplussed.)