Jess and Rob on Words Unraveled talk about color word origins, and their discussion is illuminating about the cultural variance in perception of color. Now I am at peace with all the seemingly weird color names for things.

For a quicker tour, Vox talks about the order that languages fill in color words as cultures begin to refine their distinction.

To ignore is always willful, isn’t it?

But I think one of the examples I picked has finally talked me out of this. I would happily use “vacant” to also describe a place that has never been occupied, so it didn’t require vacating to be vacant. In that case, vacate means to make vacant, not vice versa. I’ll apply that to ignore/ignorant, and I think I finally understand how people have been so comfortable with that definition.

I like this take!

I cope by just being a little extra specific when I can find the words to do so, like calling out botanically squash are fruits and mushrooms are fungi, while culinarily they work as veggies.

“Ignorant” does mean wilfully ignorant. It doesn’t just mean uninformed.

To be vacant is to have been vacated.

To be an applicant is to have applied.

To be a claimant is to have made a claim.

And to be ignorant is to have ignored something.

(Of course, not all “-ant” words seem to stand alone without their suffix–at least, not in today’s vernacular. Does an arrogant person arrog? Does a fragrant flower frag? Rob Words might have more to say about the vestigial origins of some of these.)

Can’t wait to learn how I might just be ignorant about this (by my definition or the “real” one).

But somehow like half of everyone has too much skin flora or overreacts to it, something like that, so lots of us get dandruff and dermatitis if we don’t wash to control those populations.