My annoyance has reached a crescendo (I hope)

[Bert]

How many times have you read or heard the word 'crescendo' being misused? I have lost count. (Tbh, I never started counting.)
Almost everybody seems to think it means a peak or a climax. Just search for the word on this site and you will see many examples.
The sheer ignorance of the general population is so annoying!

[jomifl]

literally...

[humbersloop]

Iconic

[shoota]

From my musical days I have always understood a crescendo to be a gradual increase in volume level. I too have been shouting at the TV when the word has been misused. No crescendo, just sforzando straight away!

[heathfield]

Arguably, (arrgh!) one of the best examples of crescendo (IMHO) is the music for the final cemetery shoot-out scene in the film 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'. It builds and builds, and when you think it can build no more - it does - again and again - for three and a half minutes. If you think that's not long, time it on your watch. In terms of movie-making tension build-up, it's like an eternity. Mindblowing. (IMHO!)

[FredPuli43]

A litany is a form of prayer consisting of a succesion of invocations , so it's easy to see why it became a word for a tedious list as in 'a litany of complaints' .
On music, I liked my friend's observation that 'the credenza' in a concerto was well played ! Never mind misuse of musical terms, a good malapropism is always welcome !

[Playbill]

heathfield -

That piece of music is called 'The Ecstasy of Gold' composed by Ennio Morricone.

I have seen it performed live, conducted by Morricone a couple of times.

Many versions on youtube with the soprano Susanna Rigacci.

Hearing her singing literally sends shivers down my spine. And I do mean literally!

[Zhukov]

yes ,Chronic..related to Time..length of illness e.g. ..Chronos..Chronometer..Chronicle..

[Prudie]

I don't think i've noticed crescendo being used on this site at all but maybe I'm a bit largo.

[heathfield]

Thanks, Playbill - YouTube is now bookmarked !

[4candles]

It's another often mis-applied word, but I think it's fair to say that Morricone is a musical genius.

[irish-quizzer]

sorry Calibax I even got your name wrong .Still very grateful for your help

[Bert]

Sasskins answer form the Oxford dictionary gives this as an example:
each time the key changes, there is a gradual crescendo
and this as a definition:
a gradual increase in loudness in a piece of music
So 'a gradual crescendo' must be a gradual gradual increase in loudness.

[weecalf]

I would imagine if a word is used to mean something long enough it will be accepted to mean that .Various examples to many to mention .. in other word I cant think of any .

[NOX]

If we all spoke as Bert suggests though without altering and in some cases misusing words then we'd all still be grunting. I have no problem with the way anyone speaks as long as it's eloquent and it's easy to understand their desired meaning. Words are created, fall out of use or change their meanings every day, it's just language evolving and as for dictionaries citing 'wrong' meanings- they aren't wrong anymore they have simply evolved.

[Bert]

I can put up with words altering their meanings, Nox, but when we have perfectly good words, such as 'peak', 'climax', and 'maximum', why do we need people to misuse other words through sheer ignorance - 'epicentre', 'eye of the storm' for a couple of other examples - and get the original meaning changed?

[FredPuli43]

Nice, Bert! Nice originally meant ' foolish, ignorant' (it's from the Latin word meaning 'not knowing'). Nice people were so nice that they had it mean something else (as I used it in my opening words).
And as for mispronunciation! People talk of someone's special strength as his forte, pronounced 'fortay' ? It should still be pronounced 'fort', as it was originally French. They pronounce the term in music, meaning 'loud', 'fortay' too, but that's correct, as it's from Italian. (i don't make the distinction either. It would now be thought eccentric or pedantic to do so)
Unfortunately, demotic is democratic. When the majority decide, in their ignorance, that a word means something different, that's what it means.
(I got through this whole thread without quoting Humpty Dumpty. That's an achievement!)

[boxtops]

Bert, I do agree with you on "epicentre" - I heard it being misused on TV news the other day meaning "the centre of the problem" - only if the problem's well below the earth's crust, then!