One for the life list!

[krait]

I believe that this is the first time I've ever seen the nonplussed-nonchalant confusion error!

I've often seen it mentioned on lists of commonly misused words, but have never encountered it in the wild before now. :D

Comments

All I see is "laying" ;__;

[blnchflr]

I don't think they mean nonchalant at all - the dog is closer to nonplussed than to nonchalant. I think they mean nonplussed, they've just never seen the dictionary definition, so they've assigned meaning from previous context. I know what they mean? (And it's not nonchalant).

"Laying", however, bugs the fuck out of me, but judging by the prevalence of occurances in TW fic, semantic shift has already occured, and my cause is lost :(

Re: All I see is "laying" ;__;

[krait]

"Laying" is pretty cringeworthy, too.

the dog is closer to nonplussed than to nonchalant

Nonplussed: perplexed, confused, taken aback, discomfited.
Nonchalant: imperturbable, disinterested, placid, unflappable.

Given a choice between the two, the non-reacting dog seems pretty nonchalant to me. (If it were entirely my description to write, I'd have said "resigned"; but if we're sticking to the two commonly confused adjectives... while the dog is probably confused as to why it's suddenly under kittenish assault, visually it does not react, so as a non-omniscient narrator I'd choose 'nonchalant'. What was your reasoning for making the reverse call, if I may ask?)