I’ve heard a lot of Gen Z people confuse dystopian and utopian. Usually I don’t care about “correct” language at all, I’d even argue languages that change are alive and changes are often invisible to those with rigid or discriminatory thinking. In this case the confusion seems almost deliberate or directional as in having an origin in some media where it is confused heavily though.
I never would “correct” a person IRL about this, but I am really confused how it is possible that several people can make the exact same error. Are the assigned meanings to those words changing?
My little sister used to think “you couldn’t have” meant “you could have” because she didn’t get that I was being sarcastic with that phrase
Gen Z does overall does seem to have a lot more trouble understanding sarcasm than previous generations and I wonder where it came from. Too much communicating online rather than in person while growing up, maybe?
I think the world has just gotten less justifiably absurd.