When Did The Word Gender Change Meaning
Words change meaning all the time — and over time. Language historian Anne Curzan takes a closer look at this miracle, and shares some words that used to mean something totally different.
Words change significant over time in ways that might surprise you. We sometimes discover words changing meaning under our noses (e.m., unique coming to mean "very unusual" rather than "one of a kind") — and it tin can be disconcerting. How in the globe are nosotros all going to communicate effectively if we allow words to shift in meaning like that?
The proficient news: History tells us that we'll be fine. Words have been irresolute significant — sometimes radically — as long as there accept been words and speakers to speak them. Hither is but a small sampling of words you lot may not accept realized didn't always mean what they mean today.
- Overnice: This word used to mean "dizzy, foolish, simple." Far from the compliment it is today!
- Airheaded: Meanwhile,featherbrained went in the reverse management: in its earliest uses, it referred to things worthy or blessed; from at that place it came to refer to the weak and vulnerable, and more recently to those who are foolish.
- Awful: Awful things used to be "worthy of awe" for a diverseness of reasons, which is how nosotros get expressions like "the awful majesty of God."
- Fizzle: The verb fizzle once referred to the act of producing serenity flatulence (think "SBD"); American college slang flipped the word's meaning to refer to failing at things.
- Wench: A shortened form of the Old English word wenchel (which referred to children of either sex), the word wench used to hateful "female child" earlier information technology came to exist used to refer to female servants — and more than pejoratively to wanton women.
- Fathom: Information technology can be hard to fathom how this verb moved from significant "to encircle with one'southward arms" to significant "to understand after much thought." Hither'south the scoop: One'southward outstretched arms tin can be used equally a measurement (a fathom), and in one case you accept fathoms, you tin can employ a fathom line to mensurate the depth of water. Think metaphorically and fathoming becomes virtually getting to the bottom of things.
- Clue: Centuries ago, a clue (or clew) was a ball of yarn. Think nigh threading your style through a maze and yous'll see how we got from yarn to cardinal bits of evidence that assistance us solve things.
- Myriad: If you had a myriad of things 600 years ago, it meant that y'all specifically had 10,000 of them — not just a lot.
- Naughty: Long agone, if yous were naughty, you had naught or nix. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are only badly behaved.
- Eerie: Before the word eerie described things that inspire fear, it used to draw people feeling fear — as in one could feel faint and eerie.
- Spinster: Every bit it sounds, spinsters used to be women who spun. It referred to a legal occupation earlier information technology came to mean "unmarried woman" — and often not in the most positive ways, as opposed to a bachelor …
- Bachelor: A bachelor was a young knight earlier the word came to refer to someone who had achieved the lowest rank at a academy — and it lives on in that significant in today's B.A. and B.Southward degrees. It'southward been used for unmarried men since Chaucer's twenty-four hours.
- Flirt: Some 500 years ago, flirting was flicking something away or flicking open a fan or otherwise making a brisk or hasty motion. Now it involves playing with people'south emotions (sometimes it may experience similar your centre is getting jerked around in the process).
- Guy: This word is an eponym. It comes from the name of Guy Fawkes, who was part of a failed try to blow up Parliament in 1605. Folks used to burn his figure, a "Guy Fawkes" or a "guy," and from in that location it came to refer to a frightful figure. In the U.S., information technology has come to refer to men in full general.
- Hussy: Believe it or not, hussy comes from the word housewife (with several sound changes, conspicuously) and used to refer to the mistress of a household, not the disreputable woman information technology refers to today.
- Egregious: It used to exist possible for it to be a skillful affair to be egregious: information technology meant you were distinguished or eminent. Only in the end, the negative meaning of the give-and-take won out, and now information technology means that someone or something is conspicuously bad — not conspicuously good.
- Quell: Quelling something or someone used to mean killing it, not only subduing it.
- Divest: 300 years ago, divesting could involve undressing as well every bit depriving others of their rights or possessions. It has merely recently come to refer to selling off investments.
- Senile: Senile used to refer only to anything related to quondam age, so you could have senile maturity. Now it refers specifically to those suffering from senile dementia.
- Meat: Have yous ever wondered about the expression "meat and drink"? It comes from an older meaning of the word meat that refers to food in general — solid food of a variety of kinds (not just animal mankind), equally opposed to drink.
We're human. We love to play with words in creative ways. And in the process, nosotros modify the language. In retrospect, we often think the changes words undergo are fascinating. May we transfer some of that fascination and wonder — some of the awe that used to make the words awful and crawly synonymous — to the changes we're witnessing today.
Picket Anne Curzan's TED Talk to find out what makes a discussion "existent".
Source: https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-very-different/
Posted by: pickettofeautioull.blogspot.com
0 Response to "When Did The Word Gender Change Meaning"
Post a Comment