Nausea and Nauseating

6.04.2007

Feeling a little vindicated. From the good folks at Merriam Webster:

Nauseous:

1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING
2 : affected with nausea or disgust

"Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nauseous