Word: confusionism
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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With plenty of good English words for confusion and destruction, why contribute to the impoverishment of the mother tongue by ignorantly or carelessly misusing a word that has a precise meaning of its own?
¶H. L. Mencken, American Language, Supplement I: "Shambles is a very old word in English. ... In American usage it has now come to signify any sort of 'very great, perhaps complete disorder, confusion or destruction. . . .' "-ED.
H. Waitt admitted they were right. He guessed that ten to twelve G.I.s had been killed by premature explosions of 4.2 shells. Later he raised the total to 29 killed and 83 wounded. Finally in confusion he agreed to make a third report about the weapon that had been represented...
Then New York's enterprising, tabloid Daily News heaped confusion on Andy May's towering embarrassment-with a lavish display of photographs from the wedding of Murray Garsson's daughter. Though May had denied any close connections with the Garssons, he turned up big as life in...
Whether Russia's foreign policy is as sinister as the reading Mr. Lippmann gives it, only time can tell. All that is discernible now is that Russia is rapidly losing her friends in the West and thereby inexorably reducing her chances for any real understanding with the United States, Great...