I’ve seen “let alone” used on Lemmy a good number of times now and, at least when I noticed it, it was always used incorrectly. It’s come to a point where I still feel like I’m being gaslit even after looking up examples, just because of the sheer amount of times I’ve seen it used outright wrong.
What I’m talking about is people switching up the first and last part. In “X, let alone Y” Y is supposed to be the more extreme case, the one that is less likely to happen, or could only happen if X also did first.
The correct usage: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not even open the box, let alone eat it.”
How I see it used constantly: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not eat it, let alone open the box.”
Other wrong usage: “Nobody checks out books anymore, let alone visits the library.”
Why does this bug me so much? I don’t know. One reason I came up with is that it’s boring. The “wrong” way the excitement always ramps down with the second sentence, so why even include it?
I am prepared to be shouted down for still somehow being incorrect about this. Do your worst. At least I’ll know I keep shifting between dimensions where “let alone” is always used differently or something.
I mostly agree with everything you said, but words can have multiple meanings like anxious:
Dictionaries only add those later definitions because dictionaries document the dumb ways people use words after all the correct ways.
So, yes, words have multiple meanings because people use them in all sorts of dumb ways and dictionaries capture that.
See the problem with that is that I believe the 3rd meaning there comes from the common misuse of the word. Otherwise the connotation behind the word loses all meaning. It would be indiscernible in what way you anticipating an event if the word means something you dread and something you eagerly wait using the exact same phrase. “I’m anxious for dad to get home”, for example, should have the connotation that they are expecting trouble when their dad gets home, while “I’m eager for dad to get home” tells you that something good will come with dad’s arrival. But that third definition means “anxious” gives both connotations, or rather neither. If anxious is both an antonym and a synonym to “eager”, it’s a linguistically meaningless word. Why bother saying it at all if you also have to explain it or give additional context to understand which polar opposite meaning you intended?
So to your first concern, the link address it:
How long does a term have to be commonly missed before it is just a common use?
As for your second concern, language isn’t separate from context. The use comes first in context and then we derive definitions. 🌍👨🏾🚀🔫👩🏾🚀
Again, not saying it’s not common use. It clearly is. But it robs the word of any meaning on its own and makes so that it has to be propped up by context to have any meaning at all. It’s not like a word taking on an entirely new definition unrelated to its previous use or it’s previous definitions being replaced by new ones. It’s newer definition is the exact opposite of its original and yet both definitions are commonly used in the exact same phrasing. Like I said, it’s a pet peeve. This newer common use definition makes the word mean nothing at all to the listener. I think anxious and eager are two separate words that should serve two separate purposes in language and making anxious mean both is dumb.
I think you misunderstand how meaning is created. Meaning is always contextual, not prescriptive definitions.
Is that why the dictionary defines every word with “it depends”, “hard to say”, and “I don’t know, man. You figure it out!”?