You keep using that word...

[joiedecombat]

Pet peeve: discovering that a word I've been using doesn't mean what I thought it meant. It makes me unreasonably sad. Especially when I can't think of any other words that mean exactly the same thing.

First "touchstone," now "diffident." Dammit. :C

Edit to add: I have at least figured out that my wrong reading of "diffident" is probably the result of conflating it with "indifferent," but that still doesn't quite mean what I was using "diffident" to mean.

Comments

[infinitepryde.livejournal.com]

... what did you think they meant that proved wrong? I don't recall ever seeing you noticeably misusing them...

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

Touchstone: something which serves as a connection to or tangible reminder of a relationship or past experience. (Actual definition: something which measures or proves something's quality.)

Diffident: ...sort of... politely unconcerned? The next best word I can think of is "nonchalant" but there's a different connotation at work. (Actual definition: hesitant due to lack of self-confidence, shy. Also reserved, which I suppose is a little closer to what I thought it meant but still not really at all the same thing.)

[atrocity.livejournal.com]

I've used your definition of 'touchstone' for years. :(

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

It sounds like that's what it should mean!

It bothers me that it doesn't. >:|

[atrocity.livejournal.com]

I petition for you to reinvent the English language. YOU'D MAKE IT BETTER.

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

I think the English language may be past help.

[infinitepryde.livejournal.com]

... the first sounds like you are thinking of 'memento'? The second -- augh. Suddenly I am convinced that there is a word *very like* 'diffident' that means that. Um um um

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

"Memento" is really close but there is a subtle distinction that nags at me. The best that I can articulate it is that when I hear "memento" I think of something that you keep in order to remember, and when I hear "touchstone" I think of something that you touch in order to stay connected to whatever it is, if only by proxy.

Also a memento is something you keep but a touchstone can be something you go back to - a place or a person.

...it makes sense in my head. :(

[infinitepryde.livejournal.com]

dispassionate? detached? augh :D

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

My wrong definition of "diffident" is like the middle ground between "nonchalant" and "dispassionate". I HAVE IT: Alfred in the Batman animated series is diffident a lot. Except he isn't because that's not what it means.

See, this is why this sort of thing bothers me, because I feel that there are very specific meanings connoted which I cannot articulate except with this one word that... does not actually mean that at all.

So I end up flailing like a flailing Zuko.

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

I was also the kid in second grade who couldn't be given the big Crayola box because she would spend so long trying to pick exactly the right shade that she would never finish a project unless she was limited to the basic 8-box, yes.