Changes in Meaning #

The English language has evolved over more than a thousand years and words have come and gone with many changing their meanings, sometimes opposite to what they originally meant. Some words become more acceptable while others decline. Some become more specific, while others more general. Some words change because of sloppy misuse, while others change due to changing circumstances.  Sometimes changes in technology occur, but words retain their original reference.  

It is through written documents, including literature from Beowulf, Chaucer and Shakespeare, we can trace changes.  

*“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language *

And next year’s words await another voice”   **** T.S Eliot, Four Quartets* *

Words strain

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still…………..T.S. Eliot notes in “Burnt Norton”  - Four Quartets:

*
*

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

*“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - - that’s all.”    *(Through the Looking Glass)

Commonly misused words.

Enormity doesn’t mean vast size (that’s enormousness) – it means a grave crime; monstrous wickedness.

**Disinterested **is about money before it’s about boredom (having no financial interest in one particular outcome or another).

**Nonplussed **is the most interesting: it has come to mean two antithetical things. The original definition is that you’re so surprised you’re unsure how to react. More recently, it has started to be used for feeling unperturbed – the exact opposite of shocked. The author notes that “both meanings are fighting it out” and recommends avoiding it altogether until this semantic battle is won.

Fulsome means insincere flattery, empty platitudes. Fulsome is a word that is constantly misused. It does not mean full or complete. The dictionary definition of fulsome is “unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech”. Other synonyms are cloying and insincere.  If you mean praiseworthy, it’s not “fulsome praise”; it’s full of praise**.**

Blandishments – flatteries, cajoleries, praises, fulsome, effusive, insincere platitudes, rhetoric, oratory, banality, prosaicism, clichéd, bromides, cant, hollowed language,  husk, shell,

*“Base words are uttered only by the base
And can for such at once be understood;
But noble platitudes — ah, there’s a case
Where the most careful scrutiny is needed
To tell a voice that’s genuinely good
From one that’s base but merely has succeeded.” 
*― W.H. Auden, Collected Poems

How words Change in Meaning #

Upon completion of St Paul’s Cathedral, King George I, told the architect, Sir Christopher Wren “your work is *amusing, awful and artificial. *  Sir Christopher was delighted with this royal compliment.  Why?

**Amusing **– amazing,  awful – awesome,  artificial – artistic.

Widening in meaning
-------------------

  
Sky              – used to be just a cloud, now the whole upper
firmament.   
Place           – used to be an open square in a town.  
Guy             -  first name of an individual; Guy Fawkes  
Bonfire     – a bone fire – burning at the stake.  
Holiday        -  a holy day – St. Crispin’s day    
Deer            - any animal   
Kind             - kinsman, kindred,  relative  
Unkind         - unkindred, treatment not suitable for relatives   
Generous     - nobly born  
Friend           - relative   
Journey        - Journeyman – distance a man could travel in a day.

2. Narrowing of meaning #

   Affection     - any emotion or disposition
   Wife            -  any woman
   Corn           -  any and all cereal crops – The Corn Laws
   Meat            -  any and all food -  “meat and drink”
   Deer           -  any animal in the forest
   Wench        -  any young girl.
   Girl             - any young person
   Humour      - fluids, temperament, disposition
   Parson        - any person

3. Elevation of meaning – Amelioration #

   Sophisticated has a fascinating etymology. About 800 years ago it had  pejorative nuances; today it has elevated connotations.   It likely came from the Greek word “sophistry” – specious or false arguments. It was associated with adulterate, perversion, falsify and debase.  By 1400 it suggested a mixture of foreign or inferior substances – unrefined. By Shakespeare’s time it had risen to not pure, simple or natural – affected, even deceitful.   By the eighteenth century it had been reformed and today is associated with experienced, worldly wise, subtle, discriminating, exalted, complex, refined – almost inverted.
   Fond           -  foolish
   Luxury        -  wanton,  lustful
   Nice            -  ignorant, foolish
   Virtue          - manliness, fortitude
   Prodigy       - hybrid offspring sprung from the loins of another species but borne of human seed

   4. Lowering of meaning-  Deterioration or debasing language The word Propaganda itself used to be a respectable term, originally meaning the spreading of good news; started with the Catholic Church when in 1622 Gregory XV set up a Commission of Cardinals, which became a sacred congregation de propaganda fide  When Goebbels, Hitler and other Fascists began to use the word to describe their promotional activities, propaganda started its slide into disrepute. Today propaganda is associated with the insidious and subversive means of moving a person to predetermined ends.

** Awful          - awe inspiring
Silly            -** happy, blessed, holy
Lust            - pleasure, joyful, energetic
Vulgar         - ordinary or common
Hussy        ** - any housewife
Sly**              - skilful
Lewd           - ignorant
Pagan         -  a rustic peasant or civilian**
Stink/Stench -**  any odour or smell – “You stink well today!”
Crafty        ** - strong skilful
Specious     - ** beautiful
Insane         - unhealthy
**Gay            ** - happy
**Cunning     ** - learned, wise…
**Asylum      ** - place of refuge – church where you were safe.

5. **Acquisition of new multiple meanings 

Head**           - up to 20+ meanings 
Up               - up to 90+ meanings 
**Run  **           - changes due to context 6.

6.  Specialisation 

Dilapidated  -   “lapis”   stone – now any building 
Extravagant -    not part of a Papal decree 
Batchelor     -   aspiring to a full Knighthood 
Spinster       -   someone who spins cloth 
Doctor          -   highly learned teacher

7.  **Figurative extension

**Air              -  impression of importance 
Chagrin       - rough skin,  ill humour 
**Candidate **  - candidur – white 
Influence     -  power from heaven – Influenza - disobeying authority 
Naughty      -  good for naught (nothing)  

        8   .Association 

Starve **        - to die
Zest             - lemon peel  - gives up energy
Prone          - lying face down
Alibi            -  elsewhere
Butcher       ­- “bouc”  French for Goat
Curious       - careful
Urchin         - Hedgehog, porcupine,  bristly marine life
**
9.  Change of function
Picture        - portrait painting
Worm          - creeping dragon

**      10.  Technological changes 

Manuscript   - **  no longer has to be written by hand
** Paper**             -   no longer made from papyrus**
Lead Pencil   - **  contains no lead – but graphite
** Drinking Straw** -  may consist of plastic or paper.
** Atom**               -  is now divisible**

**

chuffed \chuhft\, adjective:

1. annoyed; displeased; disgruntled.
2. delighted; pleased; satisfied.

He was really chuffed about the fire as well, because Mrs Pearson from up the stairs had her washing ruined by the smoke.
– Irvine Welsh, Marabou Stork Nightmares, 1997

Well, we can discuss that when we get there. Declan will be chuffed when I tell him, the family never usually goes to these things.
– Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You, 2007

This British term comes from the obsolete chuff meaning “chubby,” used in the seventieth to nineteenth centuries. In the 1800s, chuff took on the sense of “pleased.” Since the mid-1900s, chuffed has been used to mean both “pleased” or “displeased,” depending upon the context.

**Schedule **                                                                       

I thought the PM’s Public Schedule would be a list of things she was intending to do. As in this definition – “lists of intended events and times” (emphasis added)

But it’s not so in the modern world of Julia Gillard. The schedule on her website is a listing of past events and times not current or future ones. Always has been and apparently always will be. John McTernan the prime ministerial communications boss told me so in an email referring to yesterday’s snippet about the website telling us where the PM was in this week last year, instead of this year:

So now we all know. With this Labor government don’t make the mistake of taking a word at its normal meaning.

teenager

To be “teen-aged” is a concept that has been lingering around since 1818 … although the phrase didn’t become popularized until post-War America. With an economy flowing with more disposable income, it gave rise to the teenager, the Billys and Susies that could enjoy an extended childhood without the hardships of war or labor before reaching adulthood.