Nauseated or Nauseous
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This seems to come up, a lot. The nature of me looking up and using the correct words tends to lead to often being corrected as the new "hipster" grammar nazi movement has made this one of those words that people love to correct in everyday usage, but apparently no one doing so has ever actually taken a moment to look up what these worlds mean. I've many corrected by many people on this, and some more than once, and always take the time to doiubule check the meanings and let people know how to look it up, yet it keeps getting repeated.
First, for everyone - if you are going to correct someone on word usage, look it up first. Second, look it up at a definitive source rather than a random blog trying to get attention. Look at the reasoning given and see if the logic holds up.
Let's start with nauseous, the OED defines nauseous as:
adjective
1Affected with nausea; feeling inclined to vomit.
‘a rancid odour that made him nauseous’2Causing nausea.
‘the smell was nauseous’2.1 Disgusting or offensive.
‘this nauseous account of a court case’
Oxford won't even take the time to recognize nauseated as a word. But Google being a little more flexible as to what constitutes a real word, does:
nau·se·ate
ˈnôzēˌāt,ˈnôZHēˌāt/
verb
past tense: nauseated; past participle: nauseatedmake (someone) feel sick; affect with nausea.
"the thought of food nauseated her"fill (someone) with revulsion; disgust.
"I was nauseated by the vicious comment"
If you read any of numerous so called grammar blogs
trying to teach when to use these words, you will notice a common theme, they all are trying to tell you that that you should use nauseated, instead of nauseous, to say that you feel sick - all claiming that nauseous means to make others feel sick based on your behaviour - something that is not supported in the dictionary at all. At first glance it might appear that people are misreading nauseate's description and confusing how to form nauseated from that. But if we look closer, the definitions that most people give for nauseous is so unlike the actual word that it is pretty easy to track what has almost certainly happened - they are confusing nauseous with noxious! Let's look there.adjective
Harmful, poisonous, or very unpleasant.
‘they were overcome by the noxious fumes’
This seems to match exactly what so many blogs are claiming.
So what is the take away?
- Nauseous is the correct word to describe when you are feeling sick.
- To nauseate is what you say when you are annoying other people to the point of making them sick.
- Nauseated is not a recognized word by any dictionary, not even Google, and appears to be a recent made up word used solely for the purpose of correcting others.
- The source of the myth that you should not use nauseous is based on people confusing it with noxious.
So next time someone tells you it is nauseated instead of nauseous, explain that they are being nauseating or noxious and that they need to learn how to use a dictionary.
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I've never ran into the nauseated/nauseous issue in my life. Although, I don't usually go around correcting people's grammar.
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@irj said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
I've never ran into the nauseated/nauseous issue in my life. Although, I don't usually go around correcting people's grammar.
Correcting people doesn't make you run into it, it's using nauseous and the new hipster thing is to correct that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
@irj said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
I've never ran into the nauseated/nauseous issue in my life. Although, I don't usually go around correcting people's grammar.
Correcting people doesn't make you run into it, it's using nauseous and the new hipster thing is to correct that.
ah ok.
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Nauseated appears to be the new "iiregardless". A word that only exists to be used by mistake.
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@scottalanmiller said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
Nauseated appears to be the new "iiregardless". A word that only exists to be used by mistake.
I was nasueous. (Describes how I felt).
I was nauseated. (Tells how I acted).
Both are correct according to the definitions you listed above.
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@dafyre said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
@scottalanmiller said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
Nauseated appears to be the new "iiregardless". A word that only exists to be used by mistake.
I was nasueous. (Describes how I felt).
I was nauseated. (Tells how I acted).
Nauseated is the past tense of nauseate. I was nauseated means that someone made you nauseous. The only legitimate form of nauseated is a verb, not an adjective.
The issue is that people are claiming nauseated is an adjective. But the adjective of nauseate is nauseous. There is no adjective "nauseated."
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So if you use nauseated as you did, it would be...
He nauseated me, or I nauseated him. It's something you do to someone. The way you describe it is wrong even for the verb
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Compare to the verb run. You ran yesterday. Imagine using ran as an adjective. I feel ran. Sounds really weird! That's exactly how feeling nauseated sounds
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I was nauseated by the noxious fumes. That is perfectly fine according to Oxford.
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@bnrstnr said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
I was nauseated by the noxious fumes. That is perfectly fine according to Oxford.
Correct and it made you nauseous. "Was nauseated" is a verb, not an adjective. So outside of the discussion of which is the adjective.
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I agree though, almost everybody is trying to use "nauseated" as an adjective, which is obviously wrong, as it's a verb.
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@bnrstnr said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
I agree though, almost everybody is trying to use "nauseated" as an adjective, which is obviously wrong, as it's a verb.
Exactly. Which is weird as the adjective is SO well known. These are super common English words.
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Languages are alive. Nauseated will become an adjective.
It is not currently, but that matters little to how people use language.
But to @scottalanmiller's point, if you are going to try and correct someone, then you need to use the currently defined definition of the word. Not the colloquial definition or use.
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@jaredbusch said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
But to @scottalanmiller's point, if you are going to try and correct someone, then you need to use the currently defined definition of the word. Not the colloquial definition or use.
As the one being corrected, I agree. Nauseated remains a verb, no one is using it as an adjective. It is used solely in the situation where someone is correcting someone using nauseous correctly. It sounds awkward and is never really said as an adjective.
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I actually just learned from this thread that it's ONLY a verb lol
I harass my wife every time she says she "feels nauseous" ... oops -
@scottalanmiller said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
Nauseated remains a verb, no one is using it as an adjective.
No, a lot of people are using it as an adjective. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how languages change over time.
The only thing that is wrong is that you were corrected incorrectly with colloquial usage, opposed to actual definition.
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@jaredbusch said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
@scottalanmiller said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
Nauseated remains a verb, no one is using it as an adjective.
No, a lot of people are using it as an adjective. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how languages change over time.
The only thing that is wrong is that you were corrected incorrectly with colloquial usage, opposed to actual definition.
Nauseous remains way more colloquial, though, as well. There is a reason one sounds really weird when you hear it out loud - because basically no one says it (except in this context.) Right now nauseous is both the only defined usage, and the only that I know of in any serious usage. Oxford should record the adjective of the new word if they see it being actually used (at least with intent.)
I'm not sure how "accidents" are used for dictionaries - where people are openly misusing something that they thought was something else rather than intentionally meaning something new.
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@bnrstnr said in Nauseated or Nauseous:
I actually just learned from this thread that it's ONLY a verb lol
I harass my wife every time she says she "feels nauseous" ... oopsBusted. You should go apologize now.
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If I am an English professor, then I would correct someone on the usage. Since that is not the case, I will keep my mouth shut on other people's use of the English language.
