[Ads-l] eerie

[Amy West]

Yeah, when you first posted this, the use of "eerily" in "scene at the 
White House eerily calm at the moment" did not strike me as an odd 
usage, or one stretching/shifting its semantic field. I don't think it 
needs to be read as "oddly". Its use brings to mind that silence, calm, 
quiet as you're creeping around the haunted house, just before the jump 
scare (or just after). That's totally within "eerily" for me.

(Now, is it odd or surprising for this administration? Yeah, sure; but I 
think that's an inference for the reader to make.)

---Amy West

On 4/30/26 00:00, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:38:34 -0400
> From:    Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: eerie
>
> More like "oddly" than "surprisingly."
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 7:29 AM Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Now "eerily" is morphing into "surprisingly." I've read it and heard it
>> many times over the past several years, but this one seems diagnostic:.
>>
>> MSNOW reports that the "scene at the White House [is] eerily calm at the
>> moment."
>>
>> Scarily? Threateningly? Supernaturally?  How about just "weirdly" ? I
>> don't think so. "Eerily" is being used a lot these days. "Eerie," not as
>> much.
>>
>> It reminds me of the news fad, now somewhat subsided, for using
>> "ironically" whenever possible to mean "surprisingly" and "coincidentally."
>>
>> And while I'm bellyaching like some aged and crotchety prescriptivist, for
>> several years at least the same news media seem incapable of  saying "not"
>> without tacking on the word "necessarily," no matter what.
>>
>>   JL

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