I read this in a column today, "...people can't be aggravated. Only situations are aggravated. People are annoyed." That aggravates me! In checking my AHD, I find that while the definition is "to make worse or more troublesome" or to "rouse to exasperation or anger", there is a usage note. The note says that some people claim that aggravate should be used only to mean "make worse" and not "to irritate". However, AHD goes on to say that the "to irritate" definition goes back to the 17th century and is accepted by 60% of the Usage Panel. How do you use it?
In a medical usage, I could see how something could be aggravated. That is, one thing making another condition worse. An example, I reduced my sugar intake and am controlling my diabetes, but my substitute was cheese, which made my cholestorol rise!
I get very aggravated when people call me at the last minute to cancel something. That would be the "to irritate" usage. I find that perfectly normal to say!
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I don't think I've ever used aggravate to mean "annoy", although of course I'm aware that people use it in that way. I don't feel particularly worried about its use in this way, certainly not enough to want to "correct" someone.
I thought this example in AHD was funny: "As H.W. Fowler wrote, 'the extension from aggravating a person's temper to aggravating the person himself is slight and natural, and when we are told that Wackford Squeers [in Dicken's Nicholas Nickleby] pinched the boys in aggravating places we may reasonably infer that his choice of places aggravated both the pinches and the boys.'"
The dictionaries say that the definition of "moot" has changed to mean "already been decided", yet some people don't agree with that (I believe you are one of them, Arnie?). Yet, originally "aggravate" only meant "to make worse or more troublesome", but it has come to mean (with 60% agreement) "to rouse to exasperation or anger". So--I guess I am asking: When does one decide that a change in definition, over time, is acceptable? If it is too soon, then none of our definitions are precise. Yet, if everyone uses a word (eg, "moot", "aggravate", "decimate") to mean something, what good is the dictionary if the official definition doesn't recognize that?
It is important that, if a new use for a word is to be valid, it doesn't confuse the older meaning. With "aggravate" there is no confusion; the use of it to mean "annoy" is perhaps incorrect, but it is clear. The word "moot" means "debateable". It can hardly also come to mean "already been decided" as it is not possible to tell from the context which meaning is intended.
Arnie, I understand your position, and I agree with it, as I have said in another thread.
However, my point is that the dictionaries don't agree with it. My AHD gives as a definition: "having been previously decided or settled". It says, in a usage note, that 59% of the Usage Panel accepted the definition of "no practical importance or irrevelvant". So, we may disagree, but that decision has been made. I was just wondering how soon dictionary panels give in to usage changes.
