Stop saying 'Disinterest'

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People all over are starting to say 'disinterest' when they mean "lack of interest." Please stop. It makes my ears hurt even when I'm just reading it.

"Disinterest" is what you have when you are making a decision or judgement and you have no interest in the result other than getting it right. If you are disinterested, no outcome will cause you to gain or lose anything. It means you can judge fairly.

When disinterested comes to mean "uninterested", somebody will have to invent a new word for "disinterest".

Thank you for reading this rant.

I read it but was somewhat disinterested.

But I never said that!

I've seen it a lot too.

I've just checked my Oxford English Dictionary and it says:

disinterest. noun.
1. the state of being impartial.
2. lack of interest.

Good point, MrKnowItAll, thank you for sharing it.

Sylkat

So wait, I'm getting confused between the differences now.

Well according to my dictionary the word has two meanings, including the one the OP doesn't like; so he is incorrect.

A good judge should be disinterested, but not uninterested, in a case he or she is hearing.

Words can adopt new meanings. Language evolves. For instance, 'irregardless' is becoming a thing (to the point where spellchecker isn't even bothered by it). It's upsetting, but oh well.

as long as a person can tell from context clues what another person really means, there's no real reason to give a good hornytoad if his/her grammar is correct or not.

Online dictionaries can sometimes show meanings that are not really officially accepted.

Wrong. You misunderstood your own post.

Your dictionary confirmed what the OP said-that 'disinterest' means to have no VESTED interest.

You may be keenly interested, as a citizen, in the outcome of a lawsuit against a tobacco company. But if they appointed as judge, or to serve on the jury, you would be 'disinterested' because you are not on the take-nor do you work for a tobacco company ( nor would benifit financially from the person suing the tobacco company). So you would be impartial in your judgement.

Its a very important distinction. And the OP is making a valid point. And I agree with him that it is annoying when folks dont distinquish the two.

But what can you do? The two words a 'twins"- that get mistaken.

Nope. My dictionary indicated the word has two different meanings. BOTH are correct usage. It is down to the user of the word to make the particular meaning clear within the context it is used.

The second meaning "to have no interest" means "interest" in the sense of having a vested interest- not 'interest' in the sense of having a passion for something.

Both meanings are what the OP said.
Niether are what you said.

Second even if you interpret the second meaning your distorted way that means nothing. This is because dictionaries capitulate to the illiterate public and give the common wrong meanings as 'secondary meanings" ( like 'anxious' means having anxiety- but people wrongly use it to mean 'eager'- and often dictionaries give that dumbed down meaning as a possible secondary meaning- you still sound a juvenile dumbass when you use 'anxiouis' to mean 'eager').

To understand a legal contract its vital to understand the difference between 'uninterested' and 'disinterested'.

So we all a vested interest in distiquishing the terms. So though some of us are uninterested in the distinction, no one in the English speaking world is disnterested!

Its vital to know the difference between "uninterested" and "disnterested"

^^^
this is what we pay shysters big buck$ for.