Word UIs

[prog]

I used the word "disinterested" in a blog comment last night, and despite its tiny probable readership I find myself worried that people who do read it will read it incorrectly, that I meant it to mean "uninterested" instead of "taking a neutral stance". I bet dollars to donuts that most users of the English language think it has only the former definition, when they encounter it.

Certain people like to get angry that other people are stupid and English is doomed when they encounter evidence of readers taking the wrong meaning from words like this. And they remind me of nothing so much as hardcore Unix geeks belittling everyday computer users for getting something wrong in a command-line invocation and erasing half their hard disk.

That's right: I'm saying that that "disinterested" is an example of a word with a terrible UI.

Comments

[xach.livejournal.com]

This begs the question: are you also nonplussed?

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Connotatively, I feel that "disinterest" implies BAD interest, or an AVERSION to interest, whereas "uninterest" implies a simple lack of interest. I realize that "disinterest" has a meaning of objectiveness, but I think "objectiveness" works much better. Of course, you could use "objection" just to complicate matters further.