Thanks for all the replies! Seems it isn’t normal in America either!
I’ve been listening to a few American podcasts and I’ve heard it a few times and it’s confused me.
For example, ‘are any of these items relevant to the crime you’ve committed’ would be changed to ‘are any of these items relative to the crime you’ve committed’
Edit: clarity of example
Edit: thanks
8 comments
Most Americans? No. Most Americans know that the two words don’t mean the same thing. But you’re always going to find someone who misuses words like that.
No. Also, that’s the correct use of relevant.
No, “relevant” would be the correct word in that context. I’m not going to say that nobody has ever misspoken and said “relative” instead, or that they misunderstood which word to use, but they’d be unambiguously incorrect.
As in “is that fact relative to the discussion?”
I have probably heard something like that. It’s wrong but people misspeak all the time. It happens.
It could also be an emerging new usage. That happens all the time in English.
Silly used to mean worthy.
Cute used to mean sharp witted.
Awful used to mean the same as awesome as in awe inspiring.
I’ve never heard anyone mix these words up.
Relevant means directly connected to. So whether the murder weapon belongs to me is *relevant* to the murder investigation, because the ownership of the weapon is directly connected to the murder.
Relative means has a relationship with. So a car can being going fast *relative* to bicycle, for example. There’s a comparison being drawn.
Yes. In some cases it would be like “Relative to a location.”
No.
The person may simply be using the wrong word. But that is not a common usage in the US. That or they are saying the correct word but their accent means you are misunderstanding it.