For some meter now , the far-flung misuse of the worddisinterestedhas been a bee in the bonnet of every poor soul who ca n’t seem to stop themselves from getting worked up about lexical minutia .
As any one of those aforementioned bookworm will tell you ( probably exasperatedly),disinteresteddoesn’t just meanuninterested . The latter name someone who is quite literally not interested in a given affair . IfFriendsfan theoriesbore you to tears , you ’re likely uninterested in hearing why some people conceive Rachel dreamed the integral serial publication . If you ’ve never listened to theHamiltonsoundtrack and have no plans to do so in the future tense , you ’re in all likelihood uninterested in study about the explanations behind a bunch ofHamiltonlyrics .
Disinterested , meanwhile , usually describes someone who has no vested pastime in something , or no special interest in one side over another ; i.e. unprejudiced or unbiased . Ajudge , for example , should n’t be uninterested in hearing both sides of a case — but they should be disinterested . If you ’re a disinterestedMLB ump , you do n’t let the fact that you loved the Yankees as a kid cause you to favor them when make calls .
Or , at least , that ’s what the consensus is among language prescriptivists today . As Merriam - Websterexplains , the blurry line between these two words has existed for one C ; and when they first come on the scenery in the former 17th century , their definitions were really reversed . Walter Montagu useduninterestedto meanunbiasedmore than once in his masqueThe Shepheard ’s Paradise , firstperformedat court in England in 1633 . In it , uninterestedmodifies“prayers , ” “ faith , ” and “ a Counsellor ” at dissimilar moment in the drama . Around that same time , John Donneuseddisinterestedto meanuninterested .
These day , you could get your compass point across if you pull a Donne — even Merriam - Webster recognizes thatdisinterestedcanmean“not concerned . ” But if your antecedency is appeasing thegrammarsticklers in your aliveness , you might not want to .
[ h / tMerriam - Webster ]
