While perusing the internet, I came across an article about words. So, of course I had to then stop and check it out.
Reader’s Digest has compiled a list of 15 words that many folk argue aren’t words at all.
But they are wrong. They ARE real words.
The others include:
irregardless
prolly
funner
anyways
orientate
snuck
madded
impactful
gonna
ginormous
nother
conversate
This list was originally compiled by Brittany Gibson for Reader’s Digest.
Most of these I’ve heard many times. One I hadn’t heard before was prolly (used instead of probably). Some of these I’ve used myself in everyday speech. The four words from the list that I’ve NEVER used myself are: prolly, conversate, nother, and madded.
Interestingly, the WordPress program underlined SIX of these words in red indicating that they are not words. LOL.
The SIX that WordPress underlined are: prolly, snuck, madded, impactful, nother, and conversate.
Interesting post
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Maybe I’m a bit out of the loop, but I’m kind of shocked to hear there are people that argue “firstly” and “literally” aren’t quote-unquote real words. I use them almost daily; they seem real enough to me! I think I’d really struggle if someone used “funner” or “irregardless” in conversation with me, though – no matter what Reader’s Digest says!
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Exactly!
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And now I’m beating myself over the head for the grammatical error in my original comment – gahhhh! 😅
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I love these types of posts! Thanks!
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You’re very welcome Davida.
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The Secret Lives of Dictionaries gives a great overview of how words become “real words.” LOL
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Thank-you ♥️😉
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Great post! Being Australian and using British English, I am forever getting red lines under my words because US English wants to rule the world 🙂
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We have that same problem in Canada. It was frustrating when I was working as a library cataloguer. We usually had to add titles to the database twice if they started with a word like rumour, humour, colour, etc. Yet alternatively we often use the U.S. spelling of some words as often as we do the British spelling. ( recognize and recognise ) for instance.
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The ever-changing, ever-amazing English language I guess!
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True. Our language is ever evolving. Sometimes for the better, some times for the worse.
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🙂
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Irregardless is an incorrect usage of regardless. I’ll never use it.
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Hmmm, there are several, as other commenters stated, that I am shocked people would not consider them words. I actually cringed to see gonna is an accepted word. That is definitely due to laziness on our part. I know I use it when I speak, but not in writing. Prolly falls into that camp as well. I guess I am showing my age here, lol. 😁 Great share Lynne.
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WordPress seems to find that most of my words are apparently not real 😀
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LOL
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My friend and I used to use prolly all the time when we texted, mainly because it was shorter to type than “probably” lol. But I didn’t know people thought literally wasn’t a word??
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‘Prolly’ was a new one for me, but I can understand why you might use it while texting. Like you, I cannot imagine that anyone would think ‘literally’ wasn’t a word. What would they use instead?
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I’m gobsmacked by this list! (Is ‘gobsmacked’ a word I wonder! 😀 ) Literally, firstly, orientate and impactful are surely words in common use? I use them regularly! Some, I suspect, might be used more often over here: ginormous, humongous, irregardless, snuck. I certainly think of them as real words but maybe not what you might find in highbrow conversation. ‘Gonna’ I would have guessed to be slang – commonly used though. I imagine that it’s a recent addition to an official dictionary. Anyways and irregardless…. yes, I’ve come across both. But ‘funner’ I would have said is wrong; and prolly, madded, nother and conversate are new to me.
The more I think about it as I write this, the more it seems that many of these are recent inclusions. And maybe some – prolly, madded – are the opposite: older words that remain in the dictionary but have largely fallen from use.
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Sandra thanks for sharing your observations about these words. I expect they are ‘spot-on’.
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…do people really think “literally” isn’t a real word?! The others aren’t surprising to me – a lot of them are words that originated from people shortening other words so people probably assume they’re just slang and not “real” words. But I’m really confused as to why people would think literally isn’t a word lol
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Yes, that one puzzled me as well. 😉
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Hi. I never used a bunch of them. Never heard of a few, including prolly. The English language is complicated and always-evolving.
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True Neil. It seems a shame that words get created by people who are too lazy to use the proper word (eg. prolly for probably & nother for another). I guess if they are used often enough they gain credency. In this era of texting, even acronyms are starting to be considered as words. (eg. LOL is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary now)
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