Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous

by Jennie Ruby

Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time.

Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes:

• nauseated
• nauseous

In Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, originally copyrighted in 1935, with the fourth edition copyrighted in 2000, the writers flat out state that nauseous means "sickening to contemplate" and nauseated means "sick at the stomach." I personally have followed that distinction for as long as I can remember. In this view, if you say "I'm nauseous," you are saying you make people sick. I followed that view until today, when I did the research for this article!

That hard line was changing, even in the year 2000. In Bryan Garner's Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, published in 2000, he says that the I feel nauseous usage is so common that "to call it an 'error' is to exaggerate." Nevertheless, he says that "careful writers" still follow the traditional distinction.

In 2003, The Chicago Manual of Style (15^th edition) said that even though the use of nauseous to mean you feel sick may no longer be an error, it is still bad usage. But their actual recommendation? Sidestep the entire nauseous issue and use "I feel nauseated" for feeling sick and "that smell is nauseating" for something that seems illness-inducing. Just never use nauseous, they said, just to be safe. And if you are surrounded by grammar sticklers, that advice still holds: you will always be safe with nauseated and nauseating.

But what is the best thinking on this today? The Merriam Webster dictionary online flat out states that "I feel nauseous" is the most frequent and acceptable usage, and they actually go on to say that those who insist that it is an error are "mistaken"!

The Free Dictionary online took a poll of its panelists and determined that most use nauseous as meaning you feel sick and nauseating as meaning sickening to look at.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nauseous.

So, the [trending] bottom line is this: Don't use nauseated. Use nauseous to mean to feel sick and nauseating to mean sickening to look at.

The Nauseating [or is it Nauseous?] Challenge

Use the latest usage, not the traditionalist usage, to complete these sentences with some version of the word nausea. Trick question: one of these might not use the word nausea at all!

1. She found the car ride through the mountains to be ___________________.


2. When she got out of the car at the scenic overlook, she felt completely __________________.


3. When we opened the dumpster, the odor was ­_________________.


4. When the professionals were cleaning the fish on the beach, the vacationers found the sight ­­­­­­­­_________________.


5. The view from the top of the cliff was ___________________.


6. I felt ___________________ after seeing that Man Versus Food episode.


7. The kids said they felt ____________ after walking through the room with the gas leak.

When you are ready, add your answers as comments below.

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Results of the Training and Computer Terms Challenge

Here is a table presenting the results of the challenge. We have great consensus about eLearning and website, but many of our technical terms have still not settled into a common usage. Many of you indicated that you have no real reasons for your choices, and that is par for the course in technical terminology. It is largely personal preference until a consensus starts growing around one particular way of naming a concept. Cheryl Dennis pointed out what many of us are doing is following our own office policy, at least until the major dictionaries agree upon a term. And Karla Marsh pointed out another reality: we follow our own style until we are overridden by our customers' styles!

Many of you did note that computer-based training or CBT is an older term, but one that we cannot seem to leave behind. And at least one respondent admitted that lowercasing the word Internet is born of laziness-but I might add, that laziness may eventually add up to a consensus! My thanks to Mary Welby von Thelen for her kind comments as well.

eLearning	87%
website	87%
mLearning	73%
email	67%
the Internet	67%
HTML	67%
web page	60%
computer-based training	40%
internet	27%
e-mail	20%
Email	20%
e-learning	20%
m-learning	20%
Web site	20%
html	20%
Web page	13%
E-learning	7%

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Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

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