Can I just rant for a minute? Would that be OK? You don’t even have to really listen, just nod and smile and think of something else.\n
Your Humble Blogger really hates the use of the word disinterested<\/i> to mean unconcerned<\/i> or apathetic<\/i>. That is, it bugs me when people use the word where YHB would use the word uninterested<\/i>; there is a distinction between them that gets right on my stickler nerve.\n
This is particularly bad for me because the Youngest Member has been once again keen on listening to They Might Be Giants: Here Come the ABCs!<\/i>, and one of my favorite songs from that set is E Eats Everything<\/a>, which contains the line “ D is just disinterested\/In anything you’ve got”. Gets right up my proverbial, it does, and prevents me from thoroughly enjoying a terrific song. Then I noticed the word (used correctly by my lights) in the bit I typed in from The Dresser<\/a>, which reminded me that Lowell Weicker had called my State’s Governor disinterested<\/i> in a speech I read about in a Hartford Courant article.\n Digression: I think I actually read the longer on-line version of this story<\/a>, but in both cases, the headline is that Former Gov. calls Current Gov. “disinterested”, but the body of the text does not include any such quote from the former Gov. This seems very, very strange to me. Does it seem strange to you? I was eventually able to find some video<\/a> in which Mr. Weicker refers to “Republican Governors who are either corrupt or disinterested”, which given the meaning of the word as YHB uses it, should pretty much cover everybody, right? But yes, I think it is clear that he is referring to the only Governor Connecticut has at the moment, and that he means she is apathetic or unconcerned, rather than free of conflict. Still, it seems very strange to me to put the word in the headline and not include any aspect of the context in the body of the story at all. End Digression.\n Now, I haven’t looked up the history of the word, and I suspect that the distinction for which I am a stickler for is something made up in the Stickler Period of grammar, possibly by William Strunk himself, or by Henry Fowler, or perhaps Stephen Fry. I have had to give up my mockery or literally<\/i>, when presented with the evidence that (a) it is doing the same job as really<\/i>, and (2) the use of literally as an intensifier is hundreds of years old, and therefore has more right to exist than I have right to deny it. I suspect that the use of disinterested<\/i> to mean uninterested<\/i> is hundreds of years old as well, and no doubt there are plenty of examples that would, if I considered them carefully, persuade me that my carping on disinterested<\/i> is inconsistent and wrong. I don’t want to be thus persuaded. I want to keep getting angry about this one.\n