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]

... 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. :(