I’ve seen “let alone” used on Lemmy a good number of times now and, at least when I noticed it, it was always used incorrectly. It’s come to a point where I still feel like I’m being gaslit even after looking up examples, just because of the sheer amount of times I’ve seen it used outright wrong.
What I’m talking about is people switching up the first and last part. In “X, let alone Y” Y is supposed to be the more extreme case, the one that is less likely to happen, or could only happen if X also did first.
The correct usage: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not even open the box, let alone eat it.”
How I see it used constantly: “That spaghetti must have been months old. I did not eat it, let alone open the box.”
Other wrong usage: “Nobody checks out books anymore, let alone visits the library.”
Why does this bug me so much? I don’t know. One reason I came up with is that it’s boring. The “wrong” way the excitement always ramps down with the second sentence, so why even include it?
I am prepared to be shouted down for still somehow being incorrect about this. Do your worst. At least I’ll know I keep shifting between dimensions where “let alone” is always used differently or something.
Derisive sarcasm isn’t useful here.
Definitions are still a useful tool and help clarify the semantic field. Dictionaries are a project that imply that meaning is dependent and contextual. Dictionaries attempt to capture it, for now. A word’s meaning depends upon its part of speech and can mean different things when present in different parts of speech i.e., row. Homonyms, of which contranyms like anxious and cleave are a subset of, can even exist in the same part of speech. “A bat flew past me” is a meaningful statement, but we have deferred it’s meaning until context reveals what type of bat. It could literally be either.
Etymologies can help understand how this happens. Or their transformation can be lost. Languages change. The word “ephemera” has nothing to do with fevers. Original meaning is not the supreme meaning. Connection to the original does not confer primacy. “Cleave” means to “stay close to” and “split apart”. When you look at how the same word from two different non-English sources enter English at two different times, you see how a contranym can emerge.
The meaning of a word is open to change from social circumstances. Just because it used to mean something like a one day fever doesn’t mean it still means that nor does it mean that it’s connection is either obvious, tracable, or necessary.
A fixed meaning has to be divorced from people and it’s use. Language is a reflection of the people who use it. Meaning has several points of instability. Only context can fasten it. Context is the only way meaning is reveal despite our anxious anticipation for its stability. We are ahead of the meaning when we prematurely seek it’s stability, clarity, and certainty. And when contranyms allow for double meaning, it can be an invitation to play. And is anything more human than that?