Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what “tories” meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it’s not usual to use it as short for “territories” as I’ve used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I’m reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.
More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing “encephalitis” with “hydrocephalus” when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.
Apparently muted? I was using it like a muted yellow, so yellow but it’s been faded in some way. They thought I meant like a muted sound on the computer which meant turned off entirely.
Prostate and prostrate are close to each other in my brain and I don’t use either much.
Idk, there were a lot of words I apparently used wrong as a kid but it was never explained how. But also if you jump down someone’s throat for a definition right there and then I struggle to give one
I think, you were right about muted all along. Muted in the sense of zero sound I can relate to but it didn’t make it into dictionary yet