Eerie: Before the word eerie described things that inspire fear, it used to describe people feeling fear - as in one could feel faint and eerie. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are just badly behaved. Naughty: Long ago, if you were naughty, you had naught or nothing. Myriad: If you had a myriad of things 600 years ago, it meant that you specifically had 10,000 of them - not just a lot. Think about threading your way through a maze and you’ll see how we got from yarn to key bits of evidence that help us solve things. Clue: Centuries ago, a clue (or clew) was a ball of yarn. Think metaphorically and fathoming becomes about getting to the bottom of things. Fathom: It can be hard to fathom how this verb moved from meaning “to encircle with one’s arms” to meaning “to understand after much thought.” Here’s the scoop: One’s outstretched arms can be used as a measurement (a fathom), and once you have fathoms, you can use a fathom line to measure the depth of water. Wench: A shortened form of the Old English word wenchel (which referred to children of either sex), the word wench used to mean “female child” before it came to be used to refer to female servants - and more pejoratively to wanton women. Fizzle: The verb fizzle once referred to the act of producing quiet flatulence (think “SBD”) American college slang flipped the word’s meaning to refer to failing at things. Awful: Awful things used to be “worthy of awe” for a variety of reasons, which is how we get expressions like “the awful majesty of God.”. Silly: Meanwhile, silly went in the opposite direction: in its earliest uses, it referred to things worthy or blessed from there it came to refer to the weak and vulnerable, and more recently to those who are foolish. Nice: This word used to mean “silly, foolish, simple.” Far from the compliment it is today!. Here is just a small sampling of words you may not have realized didn’t always mean what they mean today. Words have been changing meaning - sometimes radically - as long as there have been words and speakers to speak them. 
The good news: History tells us that we’ll be fine. How in the world are we all going to communicate effectively if we allow words to shift in meaning like that? We sometimes notice words changing meaning under our noses (e.g., unique coming to mean “very unusual” rather than “one of a kind”) - and it can be disconcerting. Words change meaning over time in ways that might surprise you. Language historian Anne Curzan takes a closer look at this phenomenon, and shares some words that used to mean something totally different. Words change meaning all the time - and over time.
0 kommentar(er)
