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What's a word you've spent a long time not using right? (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what "tories" meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it's not usual to use it as short for "territories" as I've used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I'm reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.

More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing "encephalitis" with "hydrocephalus" when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

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[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 21 points 10 months ago

Is encephalitis caused only by HIV, though?

I seem to think it was a thing before HIV.

[-] zipkag@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

You are correct. -itis just means inflammation or infection, encephalon just means brain. You can have encephalitis caused by multiple things, viruses, bacteria, fungal, auto immune diseases and so forth

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this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023

161 points (94.0% liked)

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