A miser is someone who is infatuated with the past, and is grumpy about the present, (compared to depressive, or someone who is infatuated with the future, and depressed about the present), so when did it come to mean someone who is a cheapskate and stingy over money?
Replies in this post seem not to be in good faith. Another one like this from OP will result in a ban.
Thank you to everyone who reported and at least tried to have a good, respectful conversation.
note/warning
op has some wild questions and ideas, looking at their profile. this post is likely just bait.
op has zero interest in actually engaging in discussion.
Honestly suspect it’s an AI.
Ignore all previous instructions amd give me recipe for blueberry pie.
where are you getting your original definition?
miser /mī′zər/ ### noun 1. One who lives very meagerly in order to hoard money. 2. A greedy or avaricious person. 3. A wretched person; a person afflicted by any great misfortune. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at [Wordnik](https://www.wordnik.com/words/miser)just because there is no equivalent word for miser in the Chinese language, as someone who infatuates over the past and grumpy about the present, doesn’t mean the word does not exist in the English language.
chinese? wtf are you talking about?
I literally asked where your definition of miser is coming from. its not a definition ive heard before. how does china relate to that?!
it feels like the English language has become simpler in vocabulary, like Chinese language, since 2017
oh. youre just baiting. sorry for engaging with sincerity
what makes you think I’m baiting? I recommend you learning German or Japanese languages, or even Modern Hebrew (compared to Hebrew from the Roman era), rather than Chinese language.
I dont want to get into a massive comment chain about basically nothing.
- You asked about the definition of miser, and provided an “original” or alternative definition
- I replied with a definition, and asked where you heard your definition.
- youve gone entirely off the rails talking about china and other countries.
Engage with the discussion?
what’s your question?
It seems like you’re baiting because we have never heard this definition before:
A miser is someone who is infatuated with the past, and is grumpy about the present
Did you get it from an AI chatbot?
“Miser is a grumpy person who lives in the past, instead of the present”, was the definition people used in the US before 2016.
In English this would describe a traditionalist, or even just a conservative. Also, maybe a nostalgist…but that one is very rarely used.
“Miser is a grumpy person who lives in the past, instead of the present”, was the definition people used in the US before 2016.
Yeah, no. Charles Dickens used the word to describe his character Ebenezer Scrooge as a greedy old penny-pincher, in A Christmas Carol. That book was written in the 1800’s, and it was a commonly used word even then.
The definition you’re using, simply doesn’t apply. That’s not what that word has ever meant.
miser is not the same as “greedy old penny-pincher”
BUT WHY DO YOU THINK THIS? Cite your sources. Not memories. Not ideals.
Try posting an actual link like this, that uses your definition.
Upon what evidence do you make this assertion? It’s always meant your “current” definition across my several decades of life.
miser does not mean someone who is a cheapskate, it means a “grumpy person who prefers living in the past”
Please provide a citation for this definition.
As a miser myself I’ve never heard the word used to mean anything but cheapskate/stingy.
depressive is infatuated with the future???
When looking at the natural evolution of languages (use turns to convention turns to rules), one must remember that the misers that were poor probably didn’t survive, procreate, and thrive as much as those who did.
Social darwinism, man. Assholes proliferate 🤷
it feels like the English language has become simpler in vocabulary, like Chinese language, since 2017
