It’s just a colloquial thing, a grammar book will tell you it’s wrong, but people make up new words and meanings for long enough and things become commonly accepted and understood. It’s also a cynical use of the word, and the fact that it feels off is also effective in telling you that the meaning should make you feel uneasy - for this word we are talking about a fascist government abducting people and actually everybody knows what happened, after all. It’s perfectly cromulent, it doesn’t have to be Tiktok lingo (but words like unalive may very well become acceptable too).
Exactly, unalive is the word that has triggered me for a while. I think that’s why I reacted to “disappeared” as a transitive verb. It just doesn’t feel right coming out of my mouth lol.
It’s just a colloquial thing, a grammar book will tell you it’s wrong, but people make up new words and meanings for long enough and things become commonly accepted and understood. It’s also a cynical use of the word, and the fact that it feels off is also effective in telling you that the meaning should make you feel uneasy - for this word we are talking about a fascist government abducting people and actually everybody knows what happened, after all. It’s perfectly cromulent, it doesn’t have to be Tiktok lingo (but words like unalive may very well become acceptable too).
Exactly, unalive is the word that has triggered me for a while. I think that’s why I reacted to “disappeared” as a transitive verb. It just doesn’t feel right coming out of my mouth lol.
Oh well, language gonna language.