this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
784 points (97.8% liked)
Microblog Memes
6509 readers
2753 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Since when is vague a verb?
"Edit" and "access" also weren't originally verbs. Same with "babysit" and "eavesdrop". Backformation and category changing are common and perfectly natural processes in English.
Edit: This isn't directed at the OP of this comment chain, but I'm always surprised by the crazy amount of ignorant prescriptivism I see all over Lemmy. Like, I expected that shit on Reddit, but I thought we were better than that here, especially since literally the only real reason for prescriptivism is sowing class division and excluding people for not having access to the secret knowledge of "correct" (yuck!) grammar.
Did you Google that?
Nope, I can do this all day. Other fun examples of backformation off the top of my head are: "to burgle" from "burglar" (which the Brits still get mad about (note: this is incorrect, see conversation below)), originally from the Latin agent noun burglator from the verb burgare; and "cherry", backformed from Old French cerise, which was reinterpreted as a plural (even though it wasn't one), and then a new singular form was backformed. The same thing happened to "pea" (though that's a native English word) - you can still see the original "pease" in the old nursery rhyme: "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in a pot nine days old".
We don't get mad about burgle, that's just a normal word. I do remember thinking I'd gone insane the first time I heard someone unironically use the word "burglarize" to mean "burgle" though!
Ah, yep, you're absolutely right, it is "burglarize" that gets y'all riled up. That's what I get for going off memory and not checking my sources. I've edited my comment above to point out the error.
I was making a joke with a modern example of a noun being verbified, but thank you for your insight.
Oh wow, I'm feeling very whooshed at the moment. Sorry about that.
can't be wooshed if the joke wasn't funny. I'm like you, spontaneously going into long rants on linguistic fun facts. most people ignore me. I enjoyed your brief history on verbification
I understand language changes over time but sometimes it's stupider than others
From your biased, subjective point of view that has nothing to do with the objective facts of language, maybe.
Objectively, any words with more than two vocals in succession is dumb and only meant for cheating at Scrabble, objectively
verbing a word that isn't commonly verbed? that's the main thing i love in the English langauge, the flexibility to fuck around with it and still be understood by others without having to explain what you're doing
Now you're Englishing proper m8.
Using the suffix
-erfor a two syllable word isn't any correcter than verbing a noun and would probably make quite a few English teachers red in the face.Both have a linguistic use; the verb "vaguing" is a shortened form of the cumbersome "vague-posting", while "stupider" is a more emphatic and/of colloquial form of "more stupid". Neither can be replaced by their more formal form without changing the meaning of the sentence slightly.
Objectively they are very similar linguistic quirks, the only reason you'd use one but dislike the other is familiarity. Why dismiss it out of hand when you can excitedly marvel at a novel way people can remotely transfer thoughts?
i mean, you understood the meaning of the sentence, right? so the person managed to get their point accross, and saved on length by using that form - that's actually quite linguistically clever!
I got an idea that the person was venting/ranting but couldn't understand the specifics of the term "vauguing". There's so many mistakes in their response that I just assumed it was a typo.
Looks likes it's a word that been around since the 1600s but is pretty much never used anymore.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/vaguing_adj?tl=true&tab=factsheet
Verbing weirds language.
Since someone used it as a verb and it was understood by their audience
"Vagueing" as in "vagueposting".
Keep complaining and it's going to be a noun next
Why don't you have a vague about it
Girls have a vaguena.
Shutup Vague.
I'm joking please don't get mad at me.
You're so vague that you probably think this song ain't about you.
There must be some sort of place somewhere for people like... Wait, what were we talking about?
As far as zoomer/alpha slang goes, this makes a HELL of a lot more sense than most of the shit they've turned into verbs and the vast lexicon of terms they have for people who disappoint them.
slang is the way it is for a reason, it's why its called slang lmao.
Sick literally didn't make any sense the way people used it when it was new, same shit today, just different words, times change old man!
Every generation has a word soup vocabulary that generations prior don't get or can't use properly. It mostly falls out of vogue in a few years. Almost all of the words that are being used ironically to make fun of the lexicon, will become obsolete. The words that don't get the highest usage and remain stable in unironic use will move forward with the rest of the English language. That's just how language works.
Cool.
(See what i did there)
'vagueing abt me being ableist'
'implying i was ableist'
There, translated.
Oh look, proper english is more direct and succinct!
Guess the tumblr user likes vagueing as well.
Not quite, they would've been implying someone was ableist, not anyone in particular.
Did you not read the text in the tags?
We have the author, and a specific, other person, the person the author talked about the weather to, whom the author knows the twitter handle of.
Again, the author states:
abt is shorthand for about.
The 'vagueing' is directed at the author, according to author.
Is it theoretically possible that some other person asked twitter person about the weather, temporally near when the author did, and the author is mistaken?
Sure.
... And also, no, you can't meet my girlfriend, she goes to another school, and yes I can get your Xbox Live account banned, my dad works at Microsoft.
You can't prove those things aren't true, so if you challenge me on that, that means you don't trust me and that means you're a bad friend.
Now I'm gonna post "Boy it sure is disheartening when your friends question everything you ever say to them" on twitter.
... See how this works?
That wouldn't be vaguing if that was the case, it would be specifically implying.
So, are you telling me that the author used vagueing incorrectly?
Or are you telling me that my translation, which did correctly translate what the author wrote, is incorrect?
Doesn't really matter, you'd be incorrect either way.
A way that person A can imply something about person B, is to describe person B, or something person B did, without directly naming person B.
Whenever person A 'does a vagueing' about person B, they are intentionally referencing person B, but in an indirect manner.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imply
This means the implied object of the person A's vagueing is person B, as opposed to person B being the outright stated, directly specified object.
This means when they are indirectly talking about person B without directly mentioning them, they are implying that they are talking about person B, they're just doing so in a manner that allows for plausible deniability if actually directly asked who they are talking about.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Vagueing
The entire point of vagueing / vagueposting is to passive aggressively complain about a person / event whilst also setting up a plausible deniability defense, so that the vagueposter can gaslight anyone who wants to clarify what the object of their vaguepost was.
Linguistically, 'vagueing about' is itself a less active voiced and less direct way of saying 'implying'.
Its akin to 'the cop shot the dog' vs 'the dog was killed by gunfire from the cop'.
The entire construction makes the person who did the implying, did the vagueing, less directly connected to the object they were making implications, or vagueing, about.
In that sense, vagueing is an even more vague amd indorect term to use than implying.
...
Bottom line:
Ableism Accuser is implying Tumblr Poster is ableist by vagueing about Tumblr Poster.
They are indirectly complaining about and accusing them, by not specifically directing the complaint and accusation at Tumblr Poster by name.
Vagueing / vagueposting is always, necessarily, also implying, always involves implying... because all these terms refer to speaking about a specific person, action, event, thing... indirectly, without full detail.
Since we've all had to rework any word referencing Twitter for obvious reasons, I suppose.
"Posting" is fine, all the dumb "toots" and "skeets" are not. If you're trying to salvage "vaguetweeting" I suppose that is a semi-reasonable outcome. I don't think it works quite as well for subtweeting, though.
What the hell is vaguetweeting though?
Vagueposting istthe replacement word. It means posting about someone or a situational without being precise about the person or event
Like. ... "Wishing some people would mind their own business". Or "Life can be really hard sometimes, but you've got to push through". With no context, or explanation. Basically seeking attention or sympathy.
Kinda like that yes, but often a bit more specific to a situation, like the example the OP mentioned "an ableist tried to make small talk about the weather" etc.
Half the time it isn't even that clear what they are posting about.
That's jus tweeting in general.
Also, I realize the resulting confusion means this was technically "vaguing"/vagueposting itself. Recursion!
Tweeting vaguely / Vaguely tweeting.
What about using the word "tweet" to refer to a post in any microblogging platform
I could live with that, but... I mean, "post" is right there. And with the lines blending over time between "microblogging", this more forum-like pseudo-reddit thing, Instagram-style image-centered posts... I just don't know that the per-platform distinction is worth it anymore, with or without the Twitter nonsense.