It's like "bemused."

I always think it's "underwhelmed."

That's funny, I always used to think it meant "blasé."

I always thought it meant basically what @1 and @2 said. It really bothers me that it doesn't mean those things, and I have disliked it as a word ever since I learned the awful truth.

@2: ME TOO. I had to ban myself from using it.

Don't be too hard on yourself. It's a showoff word to us now, a stick-on gift bow dressing up arguments meant to sway the easily impressed. Since most everyone using it's a charlatan any more, they'll keep doing with it what they like.

Doubleplusnonplussed.

Verbage vs. Verbiage

When at least half of the time people incorrectly use the word to mean precisely opposite its actual meaning (i.e. as a synonym for "unfazed") then everyone should just stop using the word altogether. It's been fubared and now it's a worthless word. Well, I guess the only worth it has left is as a warning flag to mark linguistic showoffs.

I'd have a good laugh over this, but I'm already too busy laughing at all the fucking idiots who don't know the difference between "loose" and "lose."

Thought that meant "without a vagina"... (hic)

It is perfectly common for definitions and especially connotations to change over time, so keep using it wrong and you just might end up being right!

I'm speechless.

"Hoi polloi" is another one that I'm frequently tempted to misuse.

@2: ME THREE

@1: I always think "bemused" means "amused." Sigh.

I have embarrassing memories of thinking, as a child, that since "approximately" was a scientific-sounding term, it meant "exactly". Oy vey.

: /

I'm perplexed, err nonplussed, at the number of people who are nonplussed ate the meaning of "nonplussed".

Yeah, apparently we've all been using it wrong in a similar way. I always thought it meant "unimpressed," which is close-enough to "underwhelmed" and "blasé." Interesting!

I wonder why that is? Is there a famous quotation/movie scene/song lyric that uses "nonplussed" that way, or it it just that it sounds like it should mean unimpressed/underwhelmed?

I'd be interested to know what other words people went most of their adult life (until the last year-or-so) misusing. Mine was "levity," which I always thought meant "seriousness" or "gravity," but which actually means "frivolity," almost opposite what I thought.

penultimate.