About
«You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means» is a phrase used to call out someone else’s incorrect use of a word or phrase during online conversations. It is typically iterated as an image macro series featuring the fictional character Inigo Montoya from the 1987 romantic comedy film The Princess Bride.
Origin
The quote “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means” was said by American actor Mandy Patinkin[2] who portrayed the swordsman Inigo Montoya[3] in the 1987 romantic comedy The Princess Bride.[1] Throughout the movie, Sicilian boss Vizzini (portrayed by Wallace Shawn[4]) repeatedly describes the unfolding events as “inconceivable.” After Vizzini attempts to cut a rope the Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up, he yells out that it was inconceivable that the pirate did not fall. To this, Montoya replied with the quote:
The clip of the scene from Princess Bride was uploaded via YouTube channel Bagheadclips on February 4th, 2007. Since its upload, the video has been used in the comments of Reddit posts as early as since January 2008[20] and has gained more than 644,000 views as of July 2012.
Spread
Though the quote had been used to refute posters on 4chan[17] as early as March 2010, the first advice animal style image macro with the quote over a still photo of Mandy Patinkin as the character was shared on the advice animals subreddit[8] on June 18th, 2011. The caption used the word “decimate” as the example of what was being misused. While the word is defined as “to kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage of”[9], it was originally used in the Roman era[10] to refer to a punishment in which 1 in 10 men were killed. The misuse of the word to mean anything more than ten percent has been blogged about on Listverse[11], personal blog World Wide Words[12] and WikiHow.[13]
More instances of the image macro have appeared on other subreddits including /r/RonPaul[14] and /r/Anarcho_Capitalism.[15] As of July 2012, the Quickmeme[5] page has 640 submissions and the Memegenerator[6]page has more than 1800 submissions. Additional instances are posted on Memebase[18], Reddit[16] and Tumblr[7]with the tag “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
Related Entries
3
total
Recent Videos
2 total
Recent Images
38 total
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
+ Add a Comment
© Kos Media, LLC
Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified. «Kos» and «Daily Kos» are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC.
Privacy Policy
Daily Kos
- Front Page
- Elections
- Radio
- Comics
- RSS
About
- Terms
- Rules of the Road
- DMCA Copyright Notice
- Do Not Sell My Info
- Privacy
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Press
Advertising
- Advertising Overview
Careers
- Jobs
Merchandise
- Shirts
get out the vote
- Ways to get involved in the upcoming elections
Daily Kos moves in solidarity with the Black community.
Learn More
Republish this article
We believe in the free flow of information. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives 3.0 Australia (CC BY-ND 3.0 AU), so you can republish our articles for free, online or in print.
All republished articles must be attributed in the following way and contain links to both the site and original article: “This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.”
Media enquiries
- Phone
- +61 3 8344 4123
- news@media.unimelb.edu.au
The Media Office is staffed from 8am–5pm Monday to Friday.
The University has a television and radio studio to facilitate live and prerecorded broadcast quality interviews with media. You can also Find an expert for commentary.
“I do not think it means what you think it means.” This is a line from a famous American film from the 1980’s called Princess Bride. This line is spoken in the following conversation between two characters, Vizzini and Inigo Montoya.
Vizzini: He didn’t fall? INCONCEIVABLE*.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I love this movie, like many people I know, and I was thinking about this line the other day. It started me thinking about different phrases people say in English that don’t mean what people think they mean. So, I started looking for examples of these common phrases in everyday English and here is a list of some of what I found. I’ve include the phrase, what people often think the phrase means, the actual meaning, and then an example of how to use the phrase correctly in a sentence or two.
“I could care less”
What people think this means: “I couldn’t care less.”
What this actually means: You actually do care.
Example: I told Marisa that her ex-boyfriend Tommy has a new girlfriend and she told me “I could care less”, but she used this phrase wrong because I know she does care.
“that begs the question”
Would people think this means: To ask or raise a question.
What this actually means: To use an argument that assumes as proof the very thing one is trying to prove.
Example: Paul said that exercise is healthful because it makes you healthy. That begs the question. That is saying the same thing. He needs to make a better argument.
“let’s table this”
What people think this means: To discuss something later.
What this actually means: In the United States, this means what American’s think it means. But it means the opposite, “let’s discuss this right now”, in most of the rest of the English-speaking world.
Example (America): I think we have talked about this enough let’s table this until tomorrow.
Example (elsewhere): This is a very important decision let’s tablet it. We’ll meet in the conference room to discuss this in 5 minutes.
“to do a 360”
What people think this means: One completely changing one’s opinion.
What this actually means: One’s opinion changed, but then changed back to the original opinion.
Example: After talking to my dad about the presidential candidates I changed my mind for who I would vote for, but then I talked to my mom and I did a 360.
“PIN number”
What people think this means: This is a way to refer to ones personal identification number.
What this actually means: This is redundant phrase because PIN stands for personal identification number. When a person says PIN number that are really saying “personal identification number number.”
Example: Don’t ever tell anyone your PIN. It should be kept a secret.
“the lion’s share”
What people think this means: The greatest of all the possible shares.
What this actually means: This phrase originally comes from an Aesop’s Fable in which the lion took all, not the largest, of the shares. Over time this phrase has come to mean both ‘the greatest of all possible shares’ and ‘all the shares’ or all there is to take.
Example: I left cookies on the table in the morning and by the end of the day my teenage son had taken the lion’s share of what was there and left none for the rest of us.
* inconceivable = unbelievable
If you want to learn what more phrases and words in English actually mean you should check out the resources to learn English at Transparent Language.