Your 'stop getting Bond wrong' moments

[Captain Z]

alcoholic is a portmateau of alcohol addict itself, so shopaholic certainly isn't correct.

[Cuellar]

It apparently is just 'alcohol + ic suffix', with the '-ic' being:

1. In adjectives, immediately representing French -ique, < Latin -ic-us, of Latin origin, as in cīvic-us, classic-us, public-us, domestic-us, aquātic-us, or < Greek -ικ-ός, as in κωμικ-ός cōmic-us, γραμματικ-ός grammatic-us, ποιητικ-ός poētic-us. This was in Greek one of the commonest of suffixes, forming adjectives, with the sense 'after the manner of', 'of the nature of', 'pertaining to', 'of'. Its use in Latin was much more restricted, and it ceased to be a living formative, except in the compound suffix -āticus (see -atic suffix, -age suffix), and in words formed from Greek, or on Greek types. These were very numerous in late and medieval Latin, whence they passed into the modern languages; since the 16th cent. they have been taken directly from Greek, or formed upon Greek elements, and in some recent (esp. scientific) terms on words from Latin or other sources, as carbonic, oratoric, artistic, bardic, scaldic, felspathic, Icelandic, Byronic.

2. Already in Greek, adjectives in -ικός were used absolutely as nouns, e.g. in singular masculine, as Στωικ-ός (man) of the porch, Stoic, κριτικ-ός (man) able to discern, critic

It's been used in chemistry etc. for ages before it became used as a term for a drunk, 'alcoholic solution', 'alcoholic gas', 'alcoholic vapour', and when it was first recorded as relating to someone addicted to alcoholic it was always as an adjective, 'alcoholic men' and 'alcoholic inebriate' - so, like 'alcoholic' in the chemical sense, pertaining to alcoholic, or containing alcohol.

[petril]

I feel the same about the suffix 'holic' for addiction (shopaholic, chocoholic...)

catholic

[pandadeath]

Early on in secondary school a remix of 'The Hampster Dance' by the Cuban Boys was tearing up the charts, threatening to become that years Christmas number one, and I got annoyed every time somebody at school called it 'The Hampster Dance' rather than it's actual title. It all came to a head in the PE changing rooms when one of the biggest pricks in our year lead a chant of "Hampster Dance! Hampster Dance!" at me while I protested "But the track is called Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentisa!"

I was absolutely in the right but it seems a particularly lame hill to die on.

[KennyMonster]

Does anyone complain that forks all have the same basic fucking shape and use prongs?

STOP GETTING FORKS WRONG!

They aren't called prongs they're called 'tines' [nb]I think that's because the fork was invented in Newcastle.[/nb]

[flotemysost]

'The Hampster Dance'

In the spirit of this thread, that's another one that always used to get me (and indeed that's how it was spelled on the original website), but there's no 'p' in 'hamster'.


_{The Syrian immigrant your nan doesn't mind}


On another note, I realised after I'd hit Send on a work email yesterday that I'd written something about how "Amazon takes data from multiple sauces".

Sauces.

Sauces.

I don't deserve a job, or to exist

[kalowski]

"Very unique"
There are no degrees of uniqueness. Things are unique or they are not. I hate it when people say "it's a very unique thing".
"What, is it more unique than that other unique thing?"

[Cuellar]

It's like how there are some infinities that are more infinite than other infinities.

One of the maths nerds will tell you I'm right.

[kalowski]

It's like how there are some infinities that are more infinite than other infinities.

One of the maths nerds will tell you I'm right.

I am a maths nerd, I can prove there are multiple infinities, but not multiple unique states.

[batwings]

"Very unique"
There are no degrees of uniqueness. Things are unique or they are not. I hate it when people say "it's a very unique thing".
"What, is it more unique than that other unique thing?"

https://youtu.be/kdZtM3_Lcy4?t=45

[dissolute ocelot]

Nothing is entirely unique, everything is somewhat unique, to varying degrees.