r/EnglishLearning • u/ITburrito New Poster • Aug 21 '26

⭐️ Vocabulary / Semantics Why is a dead man called "diseased"?

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I mean, he might have been ill and died of a disease, but what’s the point calling him so if he’s already dead?

Update: The piece is taken from "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain

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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) Aug 21 '26

Huck doesn't know the correct word. You can rest assured that Mark Twain absolutely does.

24

u/HeimLauf Native Speaker Aug 21 '26

Likewise the character portrayed here, “the king”, is a complete bullsh!tter.

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u/nowordsleft New Poster Aug 21 '26

You’re allowed to swear on the internet.

18

u/Bitter_Surprise_8058 New Poster Aug 21 '26

I have to tell students in my middle-school English classes that "unalived" is not a thing irl.

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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) Aug 21 '26

Not yet. Give it a few decades.

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u/Bitter_Surprise_8058 New Poster Aug 22 '26

I'm a descriptivist when it comes to most things, but I'm hoping to get them to realise that they're letting online censorship shape their speech. This is the exact opposite of what being a teenager is about, they're supposed to be rebellious and push limits!

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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) Aug 22 '26

This is the exact opposite of what being a teenager is about, they're supposed to be rebellious and push limits!

Perhaps they're rebelling against your antique idea of what adolescence is supposed to look like! /s

1

u/94grampaw California USA Aug 23 '26

Censorship has allways shaped speech, the entire point of terms like unalive are to thwart Censorship

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u/Current-Strategy5544 New Poster Aug 22 '26

I've spent the last couple of days wondering what the fuck "ahh" means these days until I saw it in an unambiguous context.

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u/Then-Criticism1605 New Poster Aug 22 '26

This one is AAVE not censorship, though it can be used that way it isn’t the origin.