More and more people are writing "distain" when they mean "disdain." It appears to me that this is a word whose spelling is in transition. My friends just see it in as an uneducated spelling error.
Thoughts?
You're right and they are wrong, at least until they show up to defend their position.
Are they aware that distain actually is a word, or do they think it's a nonword? And if something ios distained, it's often disdained as well.
When I was in high school, they thought that it took thousands of years for a species to be developed, but now, experts are saying that dogs evolved from wolves in less than a century. Words are llike that. Sometimes iut takes forever, and other times. it happens in jig time.
This evening, I was watching the pilot for "Salem Rogers", and Salem kept saying, "Right on, tampon!" Never heasrd thart one before, but I bet it catches on really fast! See you later, alligator!
I'm not so sure. I have to admit to never seeing distain used mistakenly for disdain. And I'm further unsure that most things that actually are distained are best described as being disdained! Such things are rarely black and white, but I'd call this a simple error...