A Vocabulary Malfunction

[poliphilo]

It happens all the time- people saying "ancestor" when they mean "descendant" and "descendant" when they mean "ancestor". And no-one ever picks them up on it.

If things carry on like this the two words are going to become interchangeable synonyms for "person in (my) family tree" and that would be a pity.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I expect it has something to do with the current craze for genealogy. People are picking up the jargon- from TV adverts and the like- without ever ascertaining quite what the terms mean.