Annoyed, not aggravated
It's been a while since I had a grammar/language rant... but here goes.
We are currently reading through Numbers from the New Living Translation (just for fun). The NLT renders Num 11:10 as follows: "...the Lord became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated."
Aggravated? AGGRAVATED? To aggravate means to "increase the gravity of an offence, illness, problem..." or "to worsen". It does NOT mean "to annoy or irritate"... although that's probably how the word is mostly used these days.
*Sigh* It's a double pet peeve: poor bible translation and poor English. What's the use of having specific descriptive words like aggravate if they get used willy-nilly? If 'aggravate' means to annoy - what word will you have left to describe when the annoyance gets worse? Aggravated aggravation?
(I know, I know, I'm a terrible word snob. Please forgive me...)
We are currently reading through Numbers from the New Living Translation (just for fun). The NLT renders Num 11:10 as follows: "...the Lord became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated."
Aggravated? AGGRAVATED? To aggravate means to "increase the gravity of an offence, illness, problem..." or "to worsen". It does NOT mean "to annoy or irritate"... although that's probably how the word is mostly used these days.
*Sigh* It's a double pet peeve: poor bible translation and poor English. What's the use of having specific descriptive words like aggravate if they get used willy-nilly? If 'aggravate' means to annoy - what word will you have left to describe when the annoyance gets worse? Aggravated aggravation?
(I know, I know, I'm a terrible word snob. Please forgive me...)
posted by Bronwyn at 10:00 am
4 Comments:
(I know, I know, I'm a terrible word snob. Please forgive me...)
I do not forgive you - I applaud you!
Hehe. Trust ME to BE the one to DISAGREE. Admittedly, it is not the greatest translation of the passage - however, on the subject of the usage of the word, I do believe that it DOES mean "to annoy or irritate".
This may be a modern meaning of the word, but you are using the New Living Translation, which I would expect to use modern words. I checked a number of online dictionaries - they all had this meaning, although the Oxford indicated it was "informal".
Oh well, I guess we are 50/50 in the Scrabble games, and probably going to lose a few more, so mebe (eek to THAT word!) I should be more discrete.... :)
Ffronqk..
I think you mean you should be more 'discreet', rather than 'discrete'.
According to the "Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate",
DISCREET means 1. showing caution and good judgment in what one does; judicious, not giving away secrets, 2. unostentatious, not showey or obtrusive.
It then makes the comment, "Do not confuse discreet with discrete... which means discontinuous; detached from others; individually distinct".
As it turns out, 'discreet' is a a discrete work, not to be confused with the word 'discrete'...
:-) Bring on the Scrabble....
I'm a grammar snob too - yes, SNOB!
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