Have you ever used a word thinking you knew what it meant, but didn't?

When I was about 3-4 y/o I picked up on the word ignorant.
To my tiny little self this word sounded like it meant 'angry'.
So when I would get mad I would adamantly exclaim "you're making me ignorant!'
To which all the grownups would laugh .....which only made me more angry, aka ignorant 😂

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CrazyMusicLover · 31-35

Funny. My father argued today that ignorant means something different in English than here. He said it means "to not know." I said it means " to not know and not care about it." Which is more or less universal across languages, I guess. But now I looked up the definition and it really means to be uneducated or lacking knowledge. I somehow missed that.

SW-User

@CrazyMusicLover There’s a lot “ lacking knowledge” on here 😅

bijouxbroussard · F

@CrazyMusicLover Here it has recently come a lot closer to meaning just what you thought, however. So many people seem to bask in their ignorance now.

CrazyMusicLover · 31-35

@bijouxbroussard I concluded it mostly from how it's used here on SW but I kind of didn't realize that it's typically used as wilfully ignorant and that word is there for a reason.

bijouxbroussard · F

@CrazyMusicLover True, but even by itself the word has come to have a negative connotation. Ignorant and innocent, for example, are not quite synonyms, although both mean to not know or to be unaware.

CrazyMusicLover · 31-35

@bijouxbroussard Yeah, here it means to not care and often suggests arrogance or being aloof.