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Comment by anon946 | Hacker News Reader

Bemused (https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/can-bemuse-mean-amus...) is another word that is often understood "incorrectly".

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A list of ones I've seen in this thread or know of already:

  * Nonplussed (miffed)

  * Ambivalent (conflicted)

  * Factoid (incorrect statement)

  * Bemused (confused)

  * Peruse (read thoroughly)

  * Travesty (distortion)

  * Transpire (to be revealed)

  * Literally (in actual fact)

There's also "beg the question" which is often used to mean "naturally give rise to the question" but I believe originally meant "assumes the answer which it is trying to prove".

The modern colloquial usage of "begs the question" bugs the heck out of me. I try not to get too pedantic about language usage, but that one just sticks in my craw. I think because it's actually quite useful to understand when one is begging the question, and it feels a disservice to water down the phrase.

To be fair, I can at least see roughly why the meaning changed. The word "beg" is being used in a strange (maybe archaic?) way, and it is also useful to encode the idea of giving rise to a follow-up question. The best outcome might just be for a different phrase to capture the original meaning, something like "assumes the conclusion".

Don't forget "could care less", which is profoundly stupid as the literal meaning of the words tells one that they are using the phrase wrong.

I learned that “peruse” meant the exact opposite of what I thought when I got my GRE vocab study guide

Travesty is another one, thanks to sports announcers.

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