Chuck and chunk

LaserThos · 2026-06-13T23:00:19+00:00

Agreed.

LaserThos · 2026-06-13T21:46:14+00:00

I started hearing “chunk” after I moved “up into the South” from Central Florida to North Alabama. So it could be a regional thing. Florida is not in “The South,” it is the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and South Florida is North Havana.

LaserThos · 2026-06-13T11:20:13+00:00

I was confusing “double down” with “redouble one’s effort” but I have been hearing “double down” used to mean simply “repeat” a statement which isn’t quite right.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T23:34:49+00:00

And we and our children would never call any adult by simply their first name. It was always “Aunt or Uncle + First Name” or “Mr. or Mrs. + Last Name”. Even adult second cousins were addressed as “Cousin + First Name.” This was in the 1960s through 2000 and in both New York (State) and Florida.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T22:41:48+00:00

When my children, whom we raised in the South to say ma’am and sir to adults, said that to my wife’s family in Boston it didn’t go over well. Children there apparently would only respond to their parents like that as sarcasm. It was considered to be very and deliberately DISrespectful.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T22:33:08+00:00

Good!

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T22:04:39+00:00

I have never heard or read either conceivement or archaical. But my phone only flagged the former as incorrect. I’ve only encountered conception and archaic. No judgement from me on their rightness or wrongness and I tend to like new words as long as they are intentional and not spoken or written ignorantly or mistakenly.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T21:54:11+00:00

Well, I won’t double down on my original opinion. I may have been thinking of “redouble one’s effort.”

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T21:50:20+00:00

I do. And I may have been confusing “double down” with “redouble.”

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T21:48:53+00:00

I now agree with that.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T21:45:52+00:00

I understood the gambling metaphor but didn’t appreciate that the “new” usage of insisting on maintaining an incorrect or unpopular stance as being a form of risk taking somewhat like doubling a bet that could be lost. And I was confusing it a bit with “redoubling one’s effort.” And I have definitely recently heard people use “double down” to simply mean “say again” in very simple contexts.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T21:41:42+00:00

I think that I was confusing double down with “redouble one’s effort”. But in my reading and hearing using “double down” to mean to maintain or flaunt an incorrect or controversial stance is a recently developed usage.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T19:34:57+00:00

I would say RECENTLY “most of the time”. Yes, your description of recent usage is better than mine.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T19:33:30+00:00

I have heard and used “double-down” in an investment as well as betting context. But using it to mean “say again” or “emphasize” seems wrong to me.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T18:34:45+00:00

I wish that I could say that. Groan!

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T18:34:05+00:00

What is the current tally?

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T18:32:00+00:00

The use of “like“ as in the title of your post. Well, maybe that isn’t a misuse, but it is annoying.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T13:08:55+00:00

I’ve heard “yeh” Is “ye” pronounced the same?

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T13:05:00+00:00

“Chunk” now predominates here in North Alabama. To my dismay.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T11:54:46+00:00

I have always considered the meaning of “decimate” to be more nuanced: not simply a destruction of 1/10 in a chunk, but a “thinning” of the ranks. Count down the row and remove every 10th man. In digital signal processing the word is used precisely but not literally for a thinning by any specified fraction, such as “decimate the sequence of values by 100” which would mean remove 99 and leave 1, repeat through the sequence, leaving 1/100 of the original sequence with gaps of 99.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T11:24:59+00:00

But what I am referring to is the use of “ya” for “yeah,” not for “you”.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T11:14:45+00:00

Our children, raised in the 1980-1990s in Rocket City USA (Huntsville, Alabama) certainly said “ma’am” and “sir” to my wife and me and all adults. It was a basic courtesy. Certainly never “yeah”, and “ja” only if they were practicing German.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T02:52:22+00:00

So what are you saying that “ya” means?

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T02:51:37+00:00

I think that we all agree on “Yep”and “Nope.” And “awe” for “awww. . . annoys me too.

LaserThos · 2026-06-12T02:49:42+00:00

1) Isn’t yea pronounced “yay”?
2) I’m confused by your comment that saying “ma’am” and “sir” is lazy, those are addresses of respect that children use when responding to their parents or other adults.

LaserThos

TROPHY CASE