BS: Conflate THIS!!!

Subject: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:42 PM

Why do I see so many people using the word "conflate" lately? It's not a real word. Judging by the context people are using it in, they intend to use a word that means "confuse". If so, they should say "confuse" because confuse is a real word, but conflate isn't.

I looked in the dictionary. "Conflate" isn't in there. What is in the dictionary is this word:

conflation - n. a combining or fusing together, esp. of two variant readings of a text

Keep this in mind. You can have a conflation, but you cannot "conflate", and even if you could conflate, it would not mean "confuse".

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:57 PM

Wasn't this covered before?

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:59 PM

Was it?

Peace says that "conflate" is in his dictionary, although it's not in mine. It means to fuse or combine. Okay, so maybe it IS a real word, and I was wrong about that, but it does not mean to confuse, and that's how I see people using it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:02 PM

So how do the different prefixes alter the meaning of the root "flate"?

Or is it all "flatus"?

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:11 PM

Could be... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:26 PM

I am both confused and conflated.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:27 PM

But not deflated.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: John Hardly
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:27 PM

It's okay because it is word-like.

Like the new word "nutraceutical". Because we are collectively a stupid, conflated mass, paramedical industry knows they can fool us by making up medical sounding words to make the newest placebo sound more appealing. Otherwise we may not spend our last red cent on the newest nutraceutical. But if an actor, playing a doctor on TV tells us that this nutraceutical will heal us, we will buy it.

We're conflated.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:29 PM

We're trapped in a conflationary spiral.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:30 PM

"We're conflated."

We're fucked up!

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:36 PM

Well, it IS Saturday night, and some of us still have a death wish, so, LET'S GET CONFLATED!

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Megan L
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:39 PM

Peace if i hiv tae send Granny ower there tae skelp you your in trouble mind yer tongue wummin present

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:40 PM

She packed my bags last night, preflate...

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:44 PM

Yes, ma'am. Sorry.

"We're messed up."

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:47 PM

Ha ha, Peace. You fucked up.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Megan L
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:49 PM

As fur you Cluin I dae postal skelps as weel :)

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:49 PM

Meg, look what Cluin said.

Sorry buddy, but you know how it is . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:52 PM

I'll watch the mail, Meg. Have nae had a good skelping in years.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:01 PM

I don't think getting skelpt is an enjoyable experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:04 PM

She was a mere 5 years older than me. Look at the pic. WHEW!

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:04 PM

I believe some people pay good money.......

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: John Hardly
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:08 PM

I was just crazy about her little sister, Annette Funiviolin.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:24 PM

I think you got that link in the wrong thread, Peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:29 PM

We Googled "conflate" and there are numerous dictionary definitions for it. One of them is,

"1.a : to bring together : FUSE b : CONFUSE
2 : to combine (as two readings of a text) into a composite whole"

And, it's an old word dating back to around 1600.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:31 PM

You're right, Cluin.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:58 PM

Yes, Bev and Jerry, I am now prepared to admit that conflate is a real word, even though my huge and impressive edition of...

(drum roll.....)

*** Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language - Canadian Edition 1988 ***

...does not deign to give it such status.

However, conflate does not mean to confuse. It means to fuse or combine.

I object to the ostentatious and pretentious overuse of "conflate" by certain members of this forum, and I think they are misusing the word. They are thereby contributing to a conflationary spiral.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:01 PM

"Order in the court!"

Uh, may I have a medium all dressed, hold the anchovies . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:05 PM

Not culpably, I trust. However, there may be a lilliputionally palpable thrust to subconflate on a micro-macro level.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 07:32 PM

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary dates the first recorded use to 1610, meaning "to blow or fuse together, to bring together; to compose; produce, bring about. Now rare." With a more modern meaning "to combine two readings into a composite reading" dated to 1885.

Maybe some people onthe Cat do misuse the word. However it's very easy to make up a sentence using "conflate" where confuse could be substituted and it would still make sense. Just not quite the same sense. I rather suspect that some of the posts Little Hawk is complaining about are examples of that.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 08:35 PM

The word is in my Random House Unabridged Dictionary (CD edition), but it's a "Word Perfect" spinoff so it's probably wrong.

I think the misuse of "conflate" to mean "confuse" might come from a book some one wrote that described people who "conflate metaphors" - i.e. mix a pair of perfectly good bits of tripe into a single peace of meaningless tripe. At least that's one of the first places I encountered the word. But I was only about nine years old and haven't the slightest memory of a title or author.

It might also have been that the author was simply confused, as many people have been since, and just wanted a big word to impress nine-year old kids; but I doubt that kids my age were really expected to read that kind of stuff, even back then.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 09:57 PM

Yeah, I think it's probably one of those words that people use to impress other people with how intellectual they are, and in the process they misuse it...ironically. ;-) I mean, hey, "conflate" sounds really important when you use it in a sentence where "confuse" belongs. I think that's why people use it, rather than using a more common word.

Or am I confused?

Anyway, I'm not conflated!

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:08 AM

Running two ideas together inappropriately is a common failing. And it produces confusion, since the data doesn't work well when it is wrongly conflated. For example, Bush's effort to conflate 9-11 with Saddam Hussein was very irritating because it did not compute. Many folks being unable to tolerate the pain of the resultant confusion stemming from this self-serving conflation, simply lapsed into sullen acceptance or even bought the whole nine yards, conflation and all.

Sic semper tyrranis.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:56 AM

Uh-huh. I see.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 09:26 AM

I think Amos puts his finger on the confusion about conflation. "Running two ideas together inappropriately" is an extension of earlier meanings of conflation, which are more about runnings ideas together appropriately, but it seems a justifiable enough extension - and it marks out a specific source of confusion, which can be a useful enough distinction to make.

Using less ordinary words as a way of showing off is generally better avoided - but I don't think we should fall into the opposite trap of limiting our vocabulary in ways that get in the way of precision.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 11:42 AM

For breakfast this morning I had a nice big bowl of Kellogg's Cornflates.

Now I feel all "bloaty".

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:48 PM

Well put, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 08:59 AM

Are we not all conflations.....as in the fusing or combining of our parents genetic material.....?

'Scuse me, the dog needs a long walk, right now. I won't be back for a while.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 09:27 AM

This whole society is one giant conflation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 09:35 AM

*!*
whoops
sorry
it's just conflation
bicarb anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 09:54 AM

This is just another example that the word LIE is never to be used in Washington DC. It is called the L word and is never allowed to be used in Congress while the F word is excused when Cheney says it.

Words that imply LIE are:
dissemble
disingenuous
mispoke
misinterpreted
conflate
spin
misused
misinformed
credibility gap
etc..........

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 04:16 PM

I'm sure there's a "Conflato" spell somewhere in Harry Potter world. It'd make things stick tigether. Could be unpleasant.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 04:25 PM

I believe you have hit on the real source of the recent widespread overusage of "conflate", Donuel. It's those damned politicians that have popularized the word and spread it far and wide.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 03:29 AM

Little Hawk, Mr. Webster was reputed to be an anglophobe, so maybe he left some words out out of malice, and/or to drive a wedge between Canada and England. Heh heh.

I keep advocating this, but it seems that few listen. Download the free Wordweb dictionary! It sits on the toolbar, and is pretty comprehensive. Highlight word and click Wordweb. Easy.
It says; Conflate: to mix together elements.

It doesn't have my test word, though. Oxter.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 07:33 AM

perhaps the next step will be to have a

conflaterization

or we conflaterized

It drives me BONKERS I tell you, BONKERS, when people add erizated or erization or erizationalised on to the end of perfectly decent English words which already have proper plurals, suffixes and so on.

Rant over, Carry on.

I'm off now to discombobulaterize my dinner and to burglerizate the refrigerator and cookeratorize my kippers.
arggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 07:37 AM

It's called pleonasmization.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 08:30 AM

Here is a guy that decided to speak his conscience and NOT conflate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU


As long as he repeats the party line next week he will probably keep his job.



btw

Berneke will not drop the rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Amos
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 10:45 AM

AN awesome deomonstration. She couldn't get a rope on that cayuse to save her life.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 11:00 AM

Y'know, CONFLATE and CONFLATION are perfectly good and useful terms, when used properly. How wlse would you describe a version of a ballad created by piecing together several other, less complete versions?

As far as misuse, all I can say is that, as misused words, they're in good company.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Cluin
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 04:05 PM

"How else would you describe a version of a ballad created by piecing together several other, less complete versions?"


The folk process.

Subject: RE: BS: Conflate THIS!!!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 01:20 PM

It's easy to lose sight of the fact--and it is a fact--that, at least in English, words morph from one part of speech to another easily. There's a grand history in English of this sort of change, which is called "back formation", if I've got the concept right. Conflation is a noun form, and it's common enough to found a verb on it.

The fact that a word "isn't in the dictionary" doesn't mean it isn't a word. You said, yourself, that you run into it often. Therefore it is a word. Whether you like it or not doesn't mean it isn't a word. Whether a dictionary author decides to list it doesn't mean it isn't a word.

I'll bet your dictionary that omits "conflate" is a desk dictionary, an abridged edition, a "college edition", or some such description. That means that, in order to make a volume which is useful for most purposes and of a size (and price) that can be handled, the editors have chosen to cut way back on the word list they choose to cover. And even the big unabridged dictionaries, contrary to popular belief, don't have all the words that are and/or have been current in the English language. It's just not possible.

Dave Oesterreich