Disinterest in Using Words Correctly

by Ken Bresler
The Vocabula Review, February 2015

Confusion over the proper use of “disinterest” comes from “interest” having more than one meaning. One meaning is the everyday one. We say, “Oh, that’s interesting” or “That’s a particular interest of mine.” A less common meaning of “interest” is “a claim” or “a legal share.”

Thus, “uninterested” refers to a person lacking interest. On the other hand, “disinterested” refers to a person lacking a conflict of interest, lacking self-interest, and therefore being impartial.

A New York State Supreme decision used both meanings of “interest” in one paragraph, possibly intentionally. The decision read: “[T]his court is outraged by the behavior exhibited by the interested parties — parties who were supposed to protect the person, but who have all unabashedly demonstrated through their actions … that they are only interested in getting paid.” (The decision was reported in The New York Times on January 26, 2015. By the way, the Supreme Court in New York is not the state’s high court; it is a trial court.)

Here are two legal authors, one eminent, getting it wrong in a recent book: The “case arose from a culture of disregard for civil rights and disinterest in adequate training.” “Disregard” and “disinterest” have a pleasing assonance, but the authors meant a lack of interest in training, not disinterest in training.

Here’s an example of another two lawyers getting it wrong. Defense lawyers wrote in a legal pleading about a prosecution witness: “She fomented the alleged conspiracy, literally herding defendants together from around the country for meetings, badgering them to form a plan, and mocking them and berating them when they showed disinterest.” No, the defendants showed a lack of interest. (That was reported by The New York Times on January 9, 2015.)

And finally, here’s The New York Times itself getting it wrong on September 9, 2014, in an article titled “U.S. Delegation is to Visit Moscow to Review Claims of a Missile Violation”: “And some Western experts say that Moscow has not pursued meaningful compromises over the issue and seems disinterested in negotiating deeper cuts.” Well, no. It’s not that Moscow is impartial and lacking in self-interest. It is very self-interested — and uninterested.

How is a writer to remember the proper use of “disinterest”? Don’t get fancy. Just use the regular “uninterested.” And remember, if something is uninteresting, a person is uninterested.