I'd rather listen to nails on chalkboards or Tiny Tim singing than to hear people misuse nauseous.


For anyone who doesn't get it - nauseous means causing nausea.  Nauseated means experiencing nausea.  

"The food in the cafeteria is nauseous."
"I ate in the cafetaria today.  I feel nauseated."



Thank you.

My dictionary says you are wrong. The second definition of nauseous is "affected with nausea." In fact it has a paragraph added to the definition of nauseous specifically explaining that using the word to mean "physically affected with nausea" is proper usage.

nau·seous   Audio pronunciation of "nauseous" ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (nôshs, -z-s) adj.   1. Causing nausea; sickening: “the most nauseous offal fit for the gods” (John Fowles).   2. Usage Problem. Affected with nausea. nauseous·ly adv. nauseous·ness n.    Usage Note: Traditional critics have insisted that nauseous is properly used only to mean “causing nausea” and that it is incorrect to use it to mean “affected with nausea,” as in Roller coasters make me nauseous. In this example, nauseated is preferred by 72 percent of the Usage Panel. Curiously, though, 88 percent of the Panelists prefer using nauseating in the sentence The children looked a little green from too many candy apples and nauseating (not nauseous) rides. Since there is a lot of evidence to show that nauseous is widely used to mean “feeling sick,” it appears that people use nauseous mainly in the sense in which it is considered incorrect. In its “correct” sense it is being supplanted by nauseating.

See the usage note.  I would count myself amongst the traditional critics.

Our language is constantly evolving, but I feel this is simply improper usage.  Look at good and well and also at republic and democracy.  These are misused on a daily basis and the more they are misused the more people think they are an 'acceptable variation.'  

Yeah! Give 'em hell!



clip vs. magazine
9mm vs. .45
pie

My dictionary does not identify the second defintion as a usage problem. In fact the explantatory paragraph reads:

nauseous 1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING       2 : affected with nausea or disgust

usage  Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is in error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nausesous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usu. after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseatesd, while not rare is less common than nauseous in sense 2.

My dictionary is a Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary, which I consider to more authoritative than most other dictionaries. This one was printed in 1993, so using nauseous to mean "experiencing nausea" was correct 12 years ago, and has only been gaining ground since.

"my dictionary can beat up your dictionary"  

I don't see mention that either of your references is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it is the dictionary.  Any large public library should have a concise edition, the full edition is expensive and usually would be found in a university library.  

Quoted: "my dictionary can beat up your dictionary"   I don't see mention that either of your references is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it is the dictionary.  Any large public library should have a concise edition, the full edition is expensive and usually would be found in a university library.

A good dictionary, no doubt. But I prefer a dictionary that focuses on American usage.

It used to irritate me, but I quit bothering.

What irritates me more is that dictionary panels will conform the entire language because people are unable to use the damn words correctly.

Jesus, I sound old.

Quoted: "my dictionary can beat up your dictionary"

imply  & infer   are two others often used wrong

Quoted: imply  & infer   are two others often used wrong

That infers that we don't know grammar, if I imply what you're saying correctly.  It makes me nauseous to see the deterioration of grammar.  Who needs more than one dictionary anyway?  That's just repetitive and redundant.

Ugh.
I think I threw up a little.

Maybe you should back off on the caffeine if the misuse of a word causes you such emotional distress?  Yogi Berra would give you a stroke in about three sentences.

That case of Diet Mt Dew I drank overnight last night may have contributed to my, er, contribution.  Please don't type so blurry next time; it makes it hard to read when the words are jumping all over the place.

I need a caffeine antidote.