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?

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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)
    
    • Sparky@lemmy.todayOP
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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?!

        • Sparky@lemmy.todayOP
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          1 month ago

          it feels like the English language has become simpler in vocabulary, like Chinese language, since 2017

            • Sparky@lemmy.todayOP
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              1 month ago

              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.

              • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                I dont want to get into a massive comment chain about basically nothing.

                1. You asked about the definition of miser, and provided an “original” or alternative definition
                2. I replied with a definition, and asked where you heard your definition.
                3. youve gone entirely off the rails talking about china and other countries.

                Engage with the discussion?

              • SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today
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                1 month ago

                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?

      • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        In English this would describe a traditionalist, or even just a conservative. Also, maybe a nostalgist…but that one is very rarely used.

        • Sparky@lemmy.todayOP
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          1 month ago

          “Miser is a grumpy person who lives in the past, instead of the present”, was the definition people used in the US before 2016.

          • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
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            1 month ago

            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.

          • WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today
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            1 month ago

            Upon what evidence do you make this assertion? It’s always meant your “current” definition across my several decades of life.