[TITLE]
CMV: Most people use the word "humbled" to mean the opposite of what it actually means, and should stop immediately.
WMN: t3_306jm9_t1_cppms9s
Dialogue: t3_306jm9
[LiveBeef]
It is not uncommon to hear in sports press conferences of a player whose team is Super Bowl-bound, playoff-bound, or otherwise enjoying great success that they are "humbled" for the opportunity to play at that level. Or a winning candidate from an election to be "humbled" by the turnout in their favor. The problem is, when they say that, what they are really feeling is great pride and sense of accomplishment, which is decisively not humility. "Humbled" often goes hand-in-hand with "Humiliated", which is the opposite of what most people who describe themselves as "humbled" have gone through. If someone wants to say "Although I am experiencing great success, I am still humble", that is ok. However, even that can be a problem as people describing themselves as humble very often imply that that is some great characteristic about themselves, defeating the word (the ironic phrase "I'm probably the most humble person on Earth" comes to mind). The only other context someone might describe themselves as "humbled" would be if they actually *were* properly humbled; e.g. they lost their house, car, and job and had to actually humble themselves by resorting to begging or a less dignified job, thus becoming "humbled". Outside of that context, I believe every usage of a person describing themselves as being "humbled" by some opportunity to be not only inaccurate, but polar opposite to what is meant by the word. This degrades the meaning of the word, and turns it into what is now an effectively useless proxy to say that one is proud of their accomplishments but wishes to remain coy about it. CMV! _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
[who-boppin]
I would agree with you if people said something like, "I am a humble person." But not with the usage you are using, "I am humbled to be voted MVP..." I think you are being a bit to literal with the definition of humbled.
[shibbyhornet82]
[STA-CITE]>Or a winning candidate from an election to be "humbled" by the turnout in their favor. The problem is, when they say that, what they are really feeling is great pride and sense of accomplishment, which is decisively not humility. [END-CITE]I think that when a candidate turns their attention from the task of getting elected to the task of governing, that could be a legitimately humbling experience. They're facing greater tasks, they're taking a role that has been filled by others (and, if the office has existed long enough, it's probable some of those others were more qualified), and they're doing so knowing they could face widespread disapproval for the slightest mistake. It's a lonely, daunting position that it makes perfect sense to be humbled by. Whether an individual candidate really has the capacity for reflection and introspection to think about it that way is questionable, but there's no intrinsic reason "humbled" couldn't be an apt description.
[Myuym]
I think being proud and humbled isn't mutually exclusive. For example lets take the Olympic games, you would feel proud to be there, as one of the best athletes from your country. But at the same time you could feel small and insignificant compared to the size of the event and the skills of the opposition. Or maybe a kid that won some kinda contest of skill to meet the president. He would feel proud to have won the contest, while at the same time he would feel insignificant/small compared to the president. I think both of the examples above could be described as humbled.
[guruwin]
There's a big difference between misusing the word and saying something that may not be true. An athlete absolutely **does** mean that he is humbled by the experience - whether or not he actually is humbled is irrelevant. He's just trying to sound modest.
[learhpa]
I don't understand the concept. What does a word "actually mean"? My understanding is that a word 'actually means' *what most people mean when they say it*. Any other definition requires some sort of extrinsic authority capable of declaring and enforcing an 'actual meaning' which derives from *what* exactly?
[Glory2Hypnotoad]
It's not so much a matter of what the word means as what the person means. Even if we agree that no string of letters or sounds has any objective meaning, the problem here is that two different concepts are being used interchangeably.
[learhpa]
Sure, and it's a perfectly reasonable thing to call out that the word is being used to mean different things. Where I get twitchy is when someone starts claiming that their meaning is "right" and the other guy's meaning isn't.
[LiveBeef]
[STA-CITE]> a word 'actually means' what most people mean when they say it. [END-CITE]I completely agree. So what would you say "most people mean" when they say they are "humbled" by some opportunity?
[NuclearStudent]
It is used as a complex idiom. They are gratified that their hope has been accomplished. They remain humble after their achievement. Their victory leads them to be humble and recognize those that helped them there. Their victory was so close and so hard won it silences any urge to boast; they won but for the grace of god/luck.
[wjbc]
[STA-CITE]>The problem is, when they say that, what they are really feeling is great pride and sense of accomplishment, which is decisively not humility. [END-CITE]No, what they are expressing is a sense of being unworthy and the recipient of a gift, a gift of talent, a gift of opportunity, a gift of trust from voters. Now, it's possible you don't believe what they are saying, but that is what they are saying. "I'm not worthy, thank you, I'll try not to let it go to my head, to stay humble, to keep my feet on the ground despite all these wonderful accolades." That's what it means to say "I feel humbled." However, even if the meaning were changing, what's wrong with language changing? The word "literally" now means both "literally" and "figuratively," because so many people have used it to mean "figuratively" that it's become part of the language. Language changes, get over it. "Terrible" used to mean "inspiring terror," which was a good thing. "Awful" used to mean "inspiring awe," which was a good thing. Same with "Fearful." Which is why the King of England, when St. Paul's Cathedral opened in London in the 1600s after the Great Fire, called it awful, terrible, and fearful -- and those were compliments. Over time, they became insults. There's no such thing as "denigrating the meaning of a word." There may be a lot of hypocrisy out there that should stop, but it has nothing to do with policing language.
[LiveBeef]
The word 'literally' "evolving" to mean both literally and figuratively at least makes sense; in the literal sense, literally means "literally", and in the hyperbolic sense, "literally" means figuratively. Those are two distinct senses that can be inferred by the context which the word "literally" is used, and although the English language is worse off for it, is a fairly simple change to wrap your head around. Same with terrible, fearful, etc. "Humbled" doesn't have an easily graspable tangential usage like the other examples. The beginning part of your comment makes more sense to me. However, I don't see it being used that way *genuinely* often. As I said, when it is used most of the time it seems to be a proxy for pride without having to boast. It seems to be the politically correct way of conveying that you are proud of your/your team's accomplishments. I could accept that that is an acceptable use of the word if those who used it truly meant that a situation had grounded them *more than they were before*; that is, the situation had *humbled* them. Beyond that, the use of the word is incorrect as the word is defined currently, and murky in meaning.
[LaoTzusGymShoes]
[STA-CITE]>although the English language is worse off for it, [END-CITE]Languages aren't really "better" or "worse off", I don't think. They just kinda... ooze around and change.
[LiveBeef]
I disagree; a language's primary source of value (only, if you discount room for artistic expression and other nonintrinsic sources) is its utility. If you have a three-word language, each word able to describe one thing (let's say your language is, 'rock', 'chair', and 'sky') then the language loses utility, and thus value, if two words with previously discrete meanings begin to merge without replacement (Did Uurg mean for me to pick up that rock or chair over there?)
[salpfish]
Three-word languages don't exist, and two words merging barely ever causes problems, because we have context. The current consensus among linguists is that all languages are equally useful. That is, they all work just as well as they need to in order to fit the communication needs of their speakers. Sure, some might be better at expressing a particular concept than others, but that says more about the culture of the speakers than the language itself. For instance, the Pirahã language of Brazil used to not have numbers beyond 2, and that was simply because counting wasn't culturally relevant to its speakers. But recently, as some Pirahã-speaking children have started going to Portuguese schools and having to use numbers, so the children naturally developed a number system based off the Portuguese one. Clearly Pirahã was doing just as good a job at being a language before — there was no need for numbers, so there were no words for them, but as soon as they became necessary they appeared within one generation. Similarly, if a word shifts in English and leaves behind a gap, either that gap will remain because the need to fill it never arises, or another word will shift or be created to take its place. An example of this is the euphemism treadmill, where a commonplace word starts to be seen as offensive or otherwise harsh, so another more neutral word quickly replaces it until it starts to be considered offensive as well. For instance, "shell shock" was replaced by "battle fatigue", which was replaced by "operational exhaustion", which in turn was replaced by "posttraumatic stress disorder". Each time, the words had gained negative connotations, so English quickly evolved more neutral terms to fill in the gaps. So your fears regarding "humbled" are unnecessary. English won't become less useful just because one word changes its meaning. In fact, I'd argue that it's the opposite — the connotations of the new "humbled" are quite distinct, and I can't really think of an equivalent. It expresses pride about something in a very neutral, non-braggy sort of way, and then it also has the connotation of surprise, that you weren't ever expecting for something like this to happen. English speakers have come to need a specific word for that feeling, and "humbled" it has become.
[LiveBeef]
My view about the word "humbled" was changed above by the top comment, but you changed my view of the utility of languages that I didn't even have open for changing. TIL/∆
[DeltaBot]
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/salpfish. [^salpfish's ^delta ^history](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/user/salpfish) ^| [^delta ^system ^explained](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/DeltaBot)
[mizz_kittay]
Well I *think* these people actually do feel humbled by their great experiences. They experience something amazing and great that the vast majority of human beings will never get to experience, and it makes them feel guilty. They don't feel like they are some extraordinary special person who deserves this experience while other humans don't deserve to experience it... rather, they think *all* humans deserve to experience it and they feel guilty that only they get to experience it. Coming to terms with this guilt and accepting that this is just the luck of the draw that is life and you aren't anything special even though you get to do this special thing *is* "humbling." If the people you refer to use it like that, then they're using it properly.
[LiveBeef]
I haven't been put in such a position personally, but based on my observations of how they react, 'guilt' seems like the last emotion they feel. Even if so, the sentence "I wish others could feel what I feel now" is a much more accurate way to describe that feeling than "I feel humbled" which has connotations of lowering oneself. Humility and guilt are not the same emotion.
[superkamiokande]
Have you heard of [imposter syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome)? It corroborates /u/mizz_kittay's claims about how a lot of people feel when they accomplish great things. Many people fail to internalize their accomplishments and can't avoid the feeling that they don't deserve them. So even if some people may be lying about feeling humbled at great success (not sure how you could ever really know!), there is research to suggest that it is a common, and real, feeling.
[LiveBeef]
Some deltas are in order here. I had not heard of the syndrome before, and it appears that success can be a literally "humbing" experience for some people. View was changed in a tag-team effort by you and kattay, so ∆'s for both of you.
[DeltaBot]
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/superkamiokande. [^superkamiokande's ^delta ^history](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/user/superkamiokande) ^| [^delta ^system ^explained](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/DeltaBot)
[LiveBeef]
∆ here and with superkamiokande's followup. See my reply on their comment for more
[DeltaBot]
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/mizz_kittay. [^mizz_kittay's ^delta ^history](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/user/mizz_kittay) ^| [^delta ^system ^explained](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/DeltaBot)