I am not a strict adherer to tradition definitions. By that I mean that I do not mind word usage that slowly paints in a new definition for an old word. In fact, I think that process is rather “cool”. You might ask then, “Why all the fuss over ‘nauseous’”? And here is my defense (or apologetic, if you prefer).

“Nauseated” and “nauseous” are at the opposite ends of the cause and effect spectrum. “Nauseous” describes something that is producing nausea while “nauseated” describes someone who has nausea. The former is the cause; the latter the effect. Since these are by “definition” opposed to each other, I have a difficult time allowing the denotation slide to the erroneous connotation.

If this were allowed, how would we know what the writer or speaker really meant? We might as well replace half of our words with “Smurf”. “Papa Smurf, will you smurf me a smurf of smurf please?”

Here’s the final conundrum–while I am not alone in my stance against “nauseous” to be the effect, according to the American Heritage Diction, it probably should not be the cause either:

Traditional critics have insisted that nauseous is properly used only to mean “causing nausea” and that it is incorrect to use it to mean “affected with nausea,” as in Roller coasters make me nauseous. In this example, nauseated is preferred by 72 percent of the Usage Panel. Curiously, though, 88 percent of the Panelists prefer using nauseating in the sentence The children looked a little green from too many candy apples and nauseating (not nauseous) rides. Since there is a lot of evidence to show that nauseous is widely used to mean “feeling sick,” it appears that people use nauseous mainly in the sense in which it is considered incorrect. In its “correct” sense it is being supplanted by nauseating.

If all this discussion makes you feel, um, “sick to your stomach”, rest assured that very few people care about this to the level that Gabe and I do!

Michael