u/Cohen_Math_Prep

___ist vs ___ian??? Is there a rule/reason or just happenstance?

I'm specifically asking in regards to ideologies attributed to a person. ___ist examples include Marxist, Calvinist, Buddhist, and Georgist. ___ian examples include Christian, Freudian, Jungian, and Confucian.

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u/Cohen_Math_Prep — 16 hours ago
▲ 40 r/words

Giddy means dizzy?

My understanding of the word "giddy" had been sort of deliriously happy/silly/bubbly. While reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for my kids' bedtime last night there was a passage where the Queen of Hearts screamed at the cards who had painted the roses red, "You make me giddy." It didn't take my SAT-tutor expertise in context clues to realize that she was not happy.

I stopped reading to look it up and was surprised to see the first listed definition in the dictionary to be related to the feeling or causing of dizziness. The happy/silly definition followed as the second definition. Am I a bonehead for not knowing the dizzy connotation, or is that usage less common (at least today) than the dictionary implies?

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u/Cohen_Math_Prep — 8 days ago