Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with a group of friends, when God suddenly appeared to me in the form of a five story tall marble statue of an old bearded man, adorned with gold and jewels and bathed in warm light.
“Is this enough proof for you, Jen?” he asked, both confident and a tad bit annoyed.
“Come on,” I replied, “how do I know this isn’t just a hallucination? If you’re going to go to the effort to give me proof, at least give it under controlled laboratory conditions.”
Move over lucid dreaming. I sleep debate religious apologetics.
Though to assure you I’m not completely devoid of creativity thanks to atheism, my following dream involved traveling back in time to the Lost City of Atlantis, where they bred Pokemon-like creatures and were totally nonplussed by our arrival since they apparently get time travelers all the time.
My brain is weird.
Haha! thats great! I had a dream that Ray Comfort was preaching in a supermarket and I cracked up laughing at him. He then realized that he was irrelevant and that no one took him seriously and became very sad. Good old schadenfreude dreams!
I was going to point out your misuse of the word nonplussed, but apparently that is how it is used in North America English now.
I wish I could lucid dream without waking myself up from the excitement over the fact…
Nonplussed is one of those words that doesn’t mean what a lot of people thinks it means.
I have has some strange dreams, but think you have me beat.
No, I don’t think it’s to that point yet. At least I hope not.References point out that people tend to misuse it in thisway, which increasingly they do, but I don’t think it hasreceived the lexicographer’s stamp of approval yet. (Notin the way that, say, “literally” as in “I literally died when”has been documented.) In any case, I don’t think this isa North America vs. Brittain thing. It gets misused allover the world.
Ha-ha! Awesome!Even in your sleep you were right on target — it WAS a dream, after all (a kind of hallucination).
I’ve never heard anyone say it that way before. Nobody should use such a great word the wrong way.
It’s like “inconceivable” that way.
Agreed that it’s a great word. I think what happens is that people try to pick it up in context, like we do as kids for most words, and unfortunately guess wrong.I remember my own experience. I was in 3rd or 4th grade and was reading a book. The sentence was something like “As she took the brownies out of the oven she was nonplussed to find that they were thoroughly burnt.” What is a young reader who doesn’t know the word to presume here? I presumed it meant was-not-happy with based on the “non” prefix and context. How was I to know it meant the baker was stunned into a state of inaction, even though that’s a much more interesting reaction for the character to have. Fortunately, pretty soon thereafter I somehow learned what the word actually meant.I guess I was lucky. A few years ago my boss told me that he was nonplussed by a feature film, so obviously he never learned what the word meant. (If the film he went to see was, say, Eraserhead then I suppose he could have been nonplussed but it was a typical mass-market movie.) Just a few months ago, a friend of mine from grad school wrote a book review in which he said he said, among other things, that he had high expectations but was nonplussed.In my experience it is used incorrectly at least as often as correctly, which I guess means it’s on the short list for redefinition, like “literally” has been.
non·plussed/nänˈpləst/Adjective1. (of a person) Surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react.2. (of a person) Unperturbed. Merriam-Webster
People use nonplussed as nonchalant all the time.It’s not right, but they do it anyway.
This just makes me increasingly sure that your life has serious potential as a webcomic.
Interestingly enough, my computer’s dictionary actually mentions this alternate definition:”1 (of a person) surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react : he would be completely nonplussed and embarrassed at the idea.”2 informal (of a person) not disconcerted; unperturbed.”USAGE In standard use, nonplussed means ‘surprised and confused’: : the hostility of the new neighbor’s refusal left Mrs. Walker nonplussed. In North American English, a new use has developed in recent years, meaning ‘unperturbed’—more or less the opposite of its traditional meaning: : hoping to disguise his confusion, he tried to appear nonplussed . This new use probably arose on the assumption that non- was the normal negative prefix and must therefore have a negative meaning. Although the use is common, it is not yet considered standard. The preferred spelling is nonplussed.”
Huh. I’ve never heard it any other way. Certainly never heard it used correctly, to the extent that I didn’t even know the correct meaning. Learn something new every day.
Well, taking a descriptive model of language, it has both meanings.But to refer to traditional meaning, you’re right. Confused, bewildered, at a loss as to what to do next. Presumably from French literally meaning “no more”, alluding to having no idea what more to do (what to do next), but that’s just an educated guess.
Only without the cool movie reference.
Are you suggesting that the incorrect use of the word “literally” is now accepted and that this battle is lost? I refuse to concede the word “literally”. This battle shall be fought literally to the grave. In fact, I’d say it’s far more important than a little used word like “nonplussed”.
But, but, ::sputters:: “nonplussed” is the OPPOSITE of “nonchalant”!!!!111ELEVNTY!Wait: is this one of those “bad means good” things?
Well, scratch “giant talking statue of God” off the list of things that would cause you to rethink your atheism. Of all the examples I read throughout that whole debate about things that would prove the existence of God, I kept thinking I would question my own sanity or conscious state before accepting any of them as true. And you did!
I’m going to fight literally from beyond the grave by crafting netbots that search for misuse of the word ‘literally’.
Well, and except that no one uses inconceivable incorrectly. Not even the Sicilian.
I think whoever wrote your computer’s dictionary is just trying to cover his/her own crimes against language.
I think God would be a lot more subtle than a huge statue (hmmm, huge hard thing….never mind), and would prefer to start messing with more arcane stuff, like Planck’s Constant or something. He’d let you convince yourself.
In Jim Butcher’s novel “Death Masks”, wizard Harry Dresden meets a Knight of the Cross who wields a holy sword containing one of the nails from Jesus’ crucifixion and has supernatural powers and who fights literal ( and I do mean literal) demons under the leadership of the Catholic church. This holy knight describes himself as an atheist.When Harry presses him on how he could possibly be an atheist considering the tons of daily proof he has of the existence of demons, prayer healing even the most grievous of wounds, and regularly hearing the word of God in his head telling him where he needs to go and what he needs to do, he responds, “It is entirely possible that I am hallucinating all of this.”Fun books. have you been reading Jim Butcher lately? I would assume you would have no time for pleasure reading.
It is like cleave now, I guess.1. to split or cause to split, esp along a natural weakness 2. to cling or adhere Dictionary.com
Aside from the whole definition bit. I swear I’ve heard you talk about Atlantean Pokemon breeding ground before. But if it wasn’t you, then it’s even more disturbing…. Do tinfoil hats protect against Atlanteans, or is that only Muvian technology?
It’s actually from Latin “non plus” which means no more. So your reasoning is solid.
And when I first read it, I thought you said “My brain is wired.” And I thought, yep.
Yes, unfortunately that’s what I’m suggesting. I would never use “literally” in that way, and would recommend that any serious writer also so abstain, but once this alternate meaning started showing up in virtually all the dictionaries I gave up. (That doesn’t mean you must give up–more power to you.)Alas, I’m nonplussed now that more than one person here reports an “unperturbed” definition in zer dictionary. I’m not ready to give up the fight for “nonplussed” yet, but perhaps that battle is lost too???Btw, I think it’s safe to say the misuse of “literally” also came from people hearing it sentences and guessing an incorrect meaning from context. Nobody who knew what it actually meant would begin misusing, I don’t think, but if someone took it to be a simple word they could sprinkle before another word to add emphasis they might run with it.
Of course, once time travel is invented, everyone will get them, all the time. Except for the limelight effect, there’s nothing stopping them.
I met Jesus in a dream once, and realized immediately that it was a dream. Saying so in the dream was not a good idea. His reaction was most unpleasant. At least it woke me immediately, my ears still ringing.
I used to be able to dream lucidly all the time up until the age of 11 – when the ability suddenly stopped working.Not long after I hit 13, I really, *really* started to miss it.
Well, I know people use it (comparable to “literally”) to just mean “unlikely”, but I’m fairly sure some uses of it are valid, being as it’s basically stronger than “unbelievable”. Deconstructing the word suggests a meaning which doesn’t have much use, but I haven’t found any evidence that it was ever considered to mean literally “such that no-one could possibly imagine”.
Aww, you didn’t turn into a monkey again. I was hoping that’s what would have happened, and so there would have been a fight between God and a monkey.
Haha great post Jen. It made me chuckle here at work in my cubicle. =)
I was nonplussed by your usage of the word “nonplussed” in that context.
I want to brofist your brain >.>
At least they weren’t unphased.(What is it with atheists and wordrage?)
That sounded really nasty. This sort of illustrates the importance of looking up definitions instead of inferring from context. :P
Well I found both definitions in a dictionary, with the second, opposite meaning, stating “North American Informal”. So make of that what you will.
That sounds more like hyperbole than misuse, to me.
It’s only hyperbole if the speaker knows it is hyperbole… although this may explain the origin of misuses of things like ‘literally’ and ‘inconceivable’.
Last time I dreamt of the christian mythology… was quite some time ago, though it stuck. It was in the middle of my “doubt-phase” that turned out, well, atheist. I dreamt I for some reason fell down a steep hill, and landed on the grass below. From there I saw Jesus on top of that hill. He said: “Just like you, you dumbass”. That is a translation though, and the english does not make the comment justice.
Don’t you mean you found it in LITERALLY all the dictionaries? Hyperbole to the rescue!
That is… unless God is real… but stupid! What if he’s just really not intelligent? What if he has access to being omnipotent but lacks the judgment and mental acuity to take advantage of that omnipotence?
Oh man, Sanya is totally my favorite Knight. I want to give you hugs for bringing this up.
That’s the oxford, the same I have–generally thought to be the highest-quality and most definitive English dictionary.
It’s called a descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive or normative) handling of language for a dictionary. They describe how the word is actually used.
Really?…Well… now I’m all bewildered and don’t know what to say.
The scene where the landlord character is introduced would be hilarious.
> “Is this enough proof for you, Jen?” he asked…And there’s your first clue, right there. A real god would already know how much proof you need. Omniscience and all that.
“A man walks into a bar carrying a tiny man wearing a coat and tails. The rationalist bartender thinks it fairly likely that it’s some kind of advanced animatronic or magic trick, possible that he’s hallucinating, and nearly impossible that science is so wrong that genies, leprechauns and wish granting salmon can exist.”
My grandfather was the most stridently anti-religious person I knew – I even *defended* religion (or rather religious people) in debates with him – and generally a woo-skeptic, although he had a slight tendency to “maybe” believe in scientific-sounding quantum bollocks. Anyway, he died, and I missed him. And then, one night, I dreamt of him and suddenly remembered he was dead. I told him this couldn’t possibly be real, and he said “Of course it’s not. You’re dreaming. And don’t you start believing in ghosts or any other supernatural hocus-pocus now.” I feigned indignation and told him that he could really expect better from me, we had a good laugh, and I left. One of the coolest dreams of my life. :D