At the risk of sounding pedantic, I would like to point out that, according to Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, “disinterested” means “not influenced by personal interest, impartial, unbiased.” I believe that the word Michael Schull and Donald Redelmeier intended in the title of their recent commentary1 is “uninterested.”
“Uninterested” is occasionally given as a secondary meaning for “disinterested,” but careful users of the English language find the distinction worth preserving.
Gary Pekeles Department of Pediatrics McGill University Montréal, Que.
Reference
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