Today the word wizard quiz defined "fistula" as an "inflammation". A fistula is a hole cause by surgery or it can have other causes such as inflammation, but a fistula itself is not an inflammation. (I even checked the free dictionary that fun trivia uses, to be sure). Henry II of England died of a fistula by the way - just thought I'd throw in a bit of trivia. Apparently his dietary habits were bad. He regularly ate bad food on the move. There must be a potential funtrivia question in that somewhere.

I just put the 12 letters in my string through an anagram server and it came back with "agapae." I was prepared for the "this word is not in the FT dictionary" message, but instead I got "you don't have the right letters to spell this word." I thought maybe I missed something, but I've checked over and over. I have the letters.

See if you added a space after the word. Sometimes that causes a rejection. Other times ... Retype it a couple of times. Sometimes there is a glitch and it won't accept words the first time.

If you did a copy/paste on "agapae.", the period might be what nixed it.

A question asked for the basic unit of currency in Cyprus. It's now the Euro, not the answer given as correct, which was the former currency.

I don't understand why some English speaking nations (America in particular) make up unnecessary nouns from adjectives. In word wizard today "strong emotion or feeling" was the definition for "passionateness". The perfectly adequate noun for such a definition is "passion". There's no need for a word "passionateness". It makes a beautiful language sound clunky.

No need for a response. I'm just venting my "passion" about this.

You mean like "socialistic"? America is not alone in doing this. The English language isn't alone for this either. Derivatives is how languages change and grow. Some stick around, sone are soon forgotten and get the Obs. next to them in the dictionary.

Yes, socialistic is another example. I'm not sure this is growth in language. I've a sneaking suspicion it happens because people don't pay attention at school or don't read much anymore and start making up words because they don't have a great knowledge about words that already exist. I also suspect that some people think it sounds more educated to use longer words, but often it means they get tangled up in verbiage and meaning and understanding gets lost. To cheer us up here's a funny scene that illustrates verbiage getting in the way of understanding but in this example the words are not made up except by the Rowan Atkinson character at the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

The old words may be perfectly serviceable and logical, but language evolves as people use it, not as traditional grammar dictates it should be. Preventative is very common, especially when the word is being used as a noun rather than an adjective. In fact, here in Australia I see it more commonly than I see preventive. I have never, however, seen preventate or preventation. Yet.

I just heard a talking head speaking against the Arizona protest that used Islamic cartoons as a way to express their 1st Amendment Right, say that he took umbrance rather than the real word umbrage that Americans stood up for their rights.

Mehaul, I feel sure that's how these words get into the language. Someone will copy that and then someone else until it spreads around.

In England we are very influenced by American English these days so you hear people say "envisioned" now rather than "envisaged" and in harassed the stressed syllable is now the "[censored]" rather than the "har". It comes in through the media.

Oh dear they've censured that. That made me laugh!

Me too. But 'they' is incorrect since it is done by a computer program which is an 'it'. Is censured preferred? Here we use censored. To censure means to find fault and to criticize. I see that it found fault in your post but did not criticize you for it.

If truly "everyone" uses a word to mean something new, then the word has a new definition. Kind of like how windows means more than a pane of glass in a wall to use to look outside nowadays.

Yes. And it doesn't matter if sometimes a word gets misused here and there, say as part of a local vocabulary -- in fact, I think it is a beautiful thing in some cases.

But if using the incorrect word begins to be so commonplace that it creeps into media, it gets confusing for everyone, and as soon as a strict grammarian notices it, they should squish it dead like fly! Or at least put up a good fight.

I'm talking about things like this:
http://grammarist.com/usage/tack-tack/

Hairy Bear, have you seen this article about "preventative"? Read Bob Jackson's comment, a quote from the New York Times.
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/preventive-or-preventative

On a panel discussion I just watched (and listened to) I noted the use of the word ideology by two panelists of opposing views. One pronounced it id-e-ology. Then almost as severe criticism the second pronounced it eye-de-ology.

HairyBear, that's called regional accents. It happens all across America. Try the quiz on Pittsbughese. Calling a place where to charge all of your small electronics a docking station could be seen as "misuse of existing words" by some people. Language evolves and changes or it dies out.

Mehaul, Thanks for the correction. I meant "censored" not "censured". That's just my brain getting soggy with age. I used "they" because I assumed there was some human decision making behind the censorship programme even if it is now applied automatically by machine. I was writing a perfectly ordinary word which was censored because a computer programme applied itself only to a few consecutive letters within the word.

Mira Jane. It depends what you mean by "everyone". I've noticed that misuse of language spreads fast and people forget what they were taught in school. For instance "more then" is a common mistake.

"Then" is a point in time. "Than" is the correct comparitive word. However because "than" and "then" can sound similar when people say the words quickly, some mistake "then" for "than". That does not make it right. If there are no standards in language use, people would soon no longer be able to understand each other because of misuse of words. Language does evolve over time- that's natural but it takes a long time for "everyone" to accept a new usage. However language usage can degenerate very fast in the internet age if no-one bothers pointing out mistakes.

I'm not the one that originally used "everyone" speaking in certain manner. I was quoting HairyBear.
If you hear someone use "more then", to use your example, they may actually be saying "more than". Some accents make it difficult to hear the difference. You may hear it different than what was said. Complaints about "would of" instead of "would have" in spoken language are often the person saying "would've".

If it is in a written form, that's a different story.

Hairy Bear. Sometimes there can be hilarious mistakes as a result of mistranslations from a foreign language to English (and no doubt the other way around too) - in imported goods for instance that come with "instructions" or content lists.

What I find most confusing on word wizard is when the word is a noun and the "correct" definition describes a verb, or when the word is an adjective and the "correct" definition describes a noun. There were 3 of these together in a quiz just now.

Rocket (seems like a noun to me) was defined as "send a firework display high into the sky" which is an action.

Eristic (by its ending it seems like an adjective) was defined as logical disputation (noun)

Modern (seems like an adjective to me) was defined as "a contemporary person".

Is this confusion of word types a deliberate strategy in order to make the game more difficult?