SENSE & SHIFTABILITY: HOW WORDS CHANGE MEANINGS
By
Howard Richler
Words change meanings because language is alive, it adapts to
how people think, live and interact. People don’t use words the way dictionaries define them. We see the change
in the word awful which once meant inspiring awe. Every shift in culture,
technology,humour or social norms leaves its mark on words.
Gay
As I’ve written language books and language columns and give speeches with language themes to
many groups, I am asked many questions
but if I had to single out the question I am asked most often it would be, “How
did the major sense of the word ‘gay’
change from 'happy'?” Here’s the
explanation. The first recorded sense, early in the 14th century,
was “noble, “beautiful,” or “excellent”
and often the term was employed poetically to praise exceptional women. The word re-surfaces in the late 14th
century to refer to something bright or colourful and before long this sense
was extended to people and were
considered carefree, lighthearted or cheerful.
But those who are cheerful might be engaging in some form of
pleasure and by the 15th century it could also refer to one virtually addicted to social pleasures
and a “gay dog” was term reserved for a man given to revelling or self-indulgence.
In 1630, William Davenant in The Cruel
Brother and Nicholas Rowe later in 1703 in Fair Penitent unveiled
libertine characters they dubbed “Lothario.” As a result, in the 18th century
the term “gay Lothario” was used to refer to such a character. The same sense
of a lack of moral rectitude is seen in the expression “gay abandon” that
refers to actions taken that are not considered with the consequences that
might ensue. In the 19th century, the word was sometimes applied
to a woman deemed to lead
an immoral life, such as a prostitute. Also, the term “gaycat” may have
influenced the semantic change of the word “gay.” By the turn of the 20th century,
this word gaycat was used by hobos to refer to a tramp’s companion, usually a young boy, and often
his lover.
The word is first used with the homosexual connotation in the 1920s
by American expatriates living in Paris. The first OED citation with
this sense comes from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Miss Skeens found
in Geography & Plays (1922): “ Helen Furr and Georgina Keene lived
together then‥. They were together then and traveled to another place and
stayed there and were gay there,” There
is evidence that the word was used before this date. Hugh Rawson reports in Wicked
Words that in 1889 during “the Cleveland Street Scandal (involving post
office boys in a male brothel in London's West End), a prostitute named John
Saul used gay with reference to both male homosexuals and to female prostitutes
when giving evidence to the police and in court.” Gay's first dictionary appearance in its
homosexual sense is in Noel Erskine's Underworld
& Prison Slang (1935) : “Geycat..a homosexual boy.”
Although the word still possesses the sense of “merry,” the homosexual connotation is the dominant
one notwithstanding the acceptability
of “donning gay apparel” during Yuletide
festivities.
Incidentally, “gay” is still evolving and is used by many
teenagers to designate what they regard as socially inappropriate, what is
often labelled as “lame.” In 2001, the
Washington Post reported, “Today,
they [teenagers] often use gay as an adjective meaning ‘stupid’.‥ A gay movie
is a stupid movie or one that makes no sense or one
with a lame plot or all of those things.”
Nice
I remember this sophomoric joke I first heard during my
sophomore year in high school : What’s the difference between a good girl and a
nice girl? Answer: The good girl goes to
a party, goes home then goes to bed whereas the nice girl goes to the party,
goes to bed then goes home. This depiction of the nice lass would have
resonated with Shakespeare; in Antony
& Cleopatra he uses it in this manner when Antony tells his
beloved, “When mine houres were nice and
lucky, men did ransome lives.”
The word nice derives
from the Latin nescius, “ignorant”
and the first sense of the word at the beginning of the twelfth century was
ignorant or foolish. By the end of the 12th
century this foolish behaviour could be deemed to be morally
inappropriate and it was at this juncture that it acquired the sense of lasciviousness.
Starting in the 14th century the word obtained many other senses
including “extravagant,” “scrupulous,” “coy,”
“dainty,” and
“refined.” It wasn’t until the middle of the 18th
century that we saw a full semantic inversion, when the word started to be used
as a synonym for “pleasant.”
So in a processs similar to broken telephone nice
went thru this transformation:
loose-mannered-foolish-wanton-lazy-effeminate-tender-delicate-shy-refined-fine-agreeable-kind-
pleasant.
Nice is an example of how words s/t take on an improved
sense. This process is called amelioration. The opposite process is call
pejoration and we’ll first look at some words whose senses went down.
GOINGDOWN
Sad
Originally if you
were sad you were probably stuffed with Cornish hen because its meaning in the
first millennium was “sated.” Sad
developed its sense of sorrowful or
regretful in the 14th century but it also could mean steadfast,
valiant, serious, calm or learned and was
used as such by Geoffrey Chaucer.
W In the 17th century it acquired still more senses such as
deplorable and then unfortunate. Since
the 20th century sad can also imply one who is socially undesirable.
Silly
We see a progression towards a sense of “foolish” with this
word. When it first surfaced in the 13th century its original sense
was “deserving of pity” and over the next three centuries it acquired the
senses of weak, meagre, trifling, and unlearned. At one point the word became
the conventional poetic adjective of choice to describe sheep. What is weak is
often regarded as inconsequential and the inconsequential are often regarded as
foolish. Hence it wasn't a major leap when its now dominant sense of foolish
was attained toward the end of the 16th century. Interestingly, the
original sense of silly came
from the defunct
adjective “seely” whose sense was wholly positive and could mean happy,
lucky or blessed. Similarly, the word
“cretin” derives from “Christian.” The term creitin or crestin was
used in the Swiss Alps to refer to someone afflicted with mental weakness and
stunted growth who it was believed would
retain a child-like innocence that would protect him or her from committing
grave sins. It would not take long for the “fools of God” to be regarded merely
as fools.
Villain
The serfs in feudal England did not receive good press.
The OED definition of
“villain” is “a low-born base-minded
rustic; a man of ignoble ideas or instincts.”
Later it came to mean, “an unprincipled or depraved scoundrel; a man
naturally disposed to base or criminal actions, or deeply involved in the commission
of disgraceful crimes.” The word ultimately derives from the Latin villa,
“village,” and is used in the early 14th century to refer to a
person of simple means but within fifty years came to denote someone who was
wicked. Similarly both the words clown and peasant only meant you lived in the
country and didn’t carry a pejorative sense. Lewd orig just referred to t laity
and vulgar just meant common. Interestingly noble originally just referred to
the upper level of your birth and didn’t imply high moral character, harlot originally meant villain or knave
didn’t refer specifically to women. In fact t words harlot, witch and shrew
originally applied to men not women. We see this diminishing words relating to
women in other words such as mistress, governess and majorette.
GOINGUP
Fond
Fond has definitely improved over time. In the 14th
century it meant “insipid” or foolish.” This is the sense of the word when
Prince Hamlet says “From the table of my memory, I'll wipe all fond records.”
Similarly, when King Lear describes himself as fond, he is saying that he is
doting and affectionate in a foolish
manner. In the late 16th century the meaning shifted and “fond” was
used in a positive sense to mean loving
and tender or having a strong affection for someone or something.
Shrewd
Shrewd has definitely improved over time. In the 14th
century it was synonymous
with depraved, wicked and malignant. It passed into a weaker sense where it could mean
malicious, harsh, ugly, naughty in the case of children and vicious in the case of animals. In the 16th
century it came to mean artful or cunning but cunning was not usually seen in
a complimentary light, and was usually interpreted as “dangerous.” This is the sense Shakespeare uses the word
in Richard 11 when the King talks
about men who “lift shrewd steel against our golden crown.” Notwithstanding all
the negative connotations of shrewd by the 17th century a favourable sense of the word to mean
“artful” had developed.
Perhaps the greatest change of meaning of words are in
adjectives because they’re more like to be interpreted differently. We do see
some examples where this has happened with verbs. Here are a few examples.
Fizzle
In the 16th century the original sense of
fizzle was “to break wind silently.” (As
adolescents my puerile friends and I restricted only good farts to the
category SBD, “silent but deadly.”) In
Philemon Holland's 17th
century translation of Pliny's Natural History, we read “ As for
Onopordon they say that if asses eat thereof, they will fall a fizling and
farting.” (Onopordon literally means “ass fart.”) In Benjamin Walsh’s translation of Aristophanes’ Knights
(1837): “And then in court they poisoned one another with their fizzles.”
In the 19th century the word could refer to a weak sputtering hissing sound
and was used figuratively to mean
“end weakly.” The modern sense of fizzle first appeared in the USA in
the 19th century with a sense of “fiasco.” In any case, you may never again complain that your
partner has lost his/her fizzle.
Convince
In the 16th century if you convinced someone about
some trifle, you may have been making them a godfatherly offer they couldn't
refuse because the first sense of “convince” was conquer or overcome.
Subsequently, the art of convincing became somewhat more subtle.
Jilt
Jilt originally may have referred to what Jill really did on
the hill rather than fetch a pail of water with Jack, as its first meaning in the 17th century was “a woman
who has lost her chastity.” Later in the 17th century the word referred to a lady who capriciously
casts off a lover after giving him encouragement and when Samuel Johnson wrote his
Dictionary of the English Language in1755 he defined the word as “a woman who gives her lover hopes, and
deceives him.” By the 17th century the word was being rendered as a
verb meaning to deceive or discard a lover
and by the 18th century in the name of gender equality men as
well as women could jilt.
Interestingly, in the play Hamlet when Hamlet’s mother
Gertrude says “the lady doth protest too much, methinks,” protest here has the
sense that the lady in question is talking too much and not the modern sense of
overly objecting.
NOUNS
Adjectives are very prone to changes of meaning due to their
descriptive nature and as we’ve seen some even take on opposite meanings to
their original senses. One might think that as nouns represent objects, their
meanings would be constant. But even here, we say how time changes many
meanings of nouns, Here are some examples.
Curfew
If you establish a curfew for a teenager, you may be doing so
to protect the young hellion from metaphorical burns. A curfew, however, was
established originally not to avoid metaphorical fires but actual ones. In
medieval Europe, many communities enacted a regulation whereby a bell was rung
at a fixed hour in the evening signalling that street fires be extinguished,
sometimes by covering the fire. This applied also to lights and was termed couvre feu, French for “cover fire.”
This morphed almost immediately in English to “curfew,” and by the 13th
century “curfew” merely designated the time the evening bell was rung. Only in the 20th century was the sense of curfew extended to
refer to other restricted outdoor nocturnal activities. Punch magazine in 1939 stated,
“The attempt..to get a nine o'clock curfew imposed on members of the
Women's Land Army in training..to prevent them going out with soldiers.” How
ironic that a French word should dampen passion!
Shibboleth
A shibboleth refers to a catchword that marks one as a member
of a group and the original meaning of the word was somewhat similar, but its
source is surprising. The OED relates that its first sense was as “the Hebrew word used by Jephthah as a
test-word by which to distinguish the fleeing Ephraimites (who could not
pronounce the sh)
from his own men the Gileadites (Judges 12: 4–6).” So it is fair to say
that originally exclusion from the
select group could prove deadly.
“Shibboleth” in Hebrew seemingly had the innocuous meaning of an “ear of
corn.” The OED points out that increasingly in the 20th century,
the word is used to refer to “a moral formula held tenaciously and
unreflectingly, especially a prohibitive one; a taboo.”
Humour
There is absolutely nothing funny about the first definition
of this word. The OED informs us
that “in ancient and mediæval physiology a person's physical and mental
qualities and disposition were determined by the proportions of your
humours the four chief fluids which were blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy or
black choler. So if you had too much blood you were probably sanguine and
optimistic; too much phlegm made you too much yellow bile would make you
choleric; and an excess of black bile
led to melancholy.It is in the
late 17th century when the sense of “funniness” emerges probably
with the idea that if you had good
humours you had a quirky personality and people found this quirkiness to be
amusing.
Talent
The OED shows this initial sense of “talent”: “An
ancient weight, a money of account ; a
denomination of weight, used by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks,
Romans, and other ancient nations” This
original sense in Wycliffe's 1382
translation of the Bible in this passage from Exodus: “An hundryd talentes of
silver.” But talent went through these
changes of meaning: value of money-wealth-disposition-natural ability, with
this last sense occurring as early as 1430. Notwithstanding that this
sense had been around for almost four centuries and must have been entrenched
by the 19th century, poet
Samuel Coleridge refused to accept it.
He wrote “I regret to see that vile and barbarous vocable talented, stealing
out of the newspapers.Why not shillinged, farthinged, tenpenced, etc.” This
demonstrates that s/t people e have a hard time accepting new meanings of
words. I once reviewed a book where the author objected to the use of the word
livid meaning enraged notwithstanding that is t way t word has been defined
since the 19th century. Why? Because the original sense if the word
was “of a blue leaden colour.”
Luxury
We see the societal
shift in values in the changing meaning
of the word “luxury.” It was originally seen as denoting sinful
self-indulgence. Hence one of the first citations of the word comes from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
(1386): “O foule luste of luxurie.” The lascivious taint of luxury is seen
in Hamlet when the Prince’s
ghost-father tells his son that the “royal bed of Denmark” is being used as “A
couch for luxury and damned incest.”
In the 17th century it acquired the sense of habitual use
of what is choice or costly and it wasn't until the 19th century that it obtained its modern sense of
contributing to sumptuous living. I would not be surprised, however, if in the
future the word “luxury” loses its sheen. The word has been used to death in
advertising, and like me I assume you've stayed at aa “luxury hotel” that was
rather mediocre.
Jeopardy
Jeopardy originally referred to a problem in chess and derives from the French jeu parti that means “even game.” When a game is even both
players are in danger of losing and for this reason “jeopardy” came to mean
“uncertainty” and eventually to refer to “serious
danger.” Because of the danger element
it also came to refer to a daring exploit. Its first English usage “ieupardyes”
comes from Chaucer in Dethe
Blaunche
in 1369. The spelling
“jeopardy” only became standard in the latter half of the 17th century.
Ordeal
This word in Old English had a specific legal meaning. It referred
to a trial in which an accused person was subjected to a
test, usually involving physical pain or danger. If you
overcame these crucibles it was regarded as divine proof of
your innocence. These tests were ordeals by fire, (e.g., carrying heated metal)
hot water, (plunging your hands into boiling water) cold water, and combat. It
wouldn't be until 1215 that these legal
methods were abolished. As in modern-day
reality television, these ordeals were somewhat rigged. To be declared innocent
one would have to accomplish the impossible, such as carrying red-hot coals
without being burned. It was only in the 17th century that ordeal
acquired its metaphorical and less painful meaning of a “trying experience.”
AGRICULTURE
City slicker might be shocked to learn that there was a time
when people's interactions with animals transcended their appearance on plates
as cheeseburgers and chicken
fingers. For most of our civilized
history people lived in agricultural societies where one was likely to rub
snouts with a sheep or a pig and animals played significant roles in ones
ability to survive and flourish. People shared the same farm and often the same
house with animals. And of such many words referred to agriculture before their
meaning altered.
Pedigree
If you take pride in your
pedigree, (or more likely your dog's ) you might be chastened to know
that according to the original sense of the word, you are effectively crowing
about the “foot of a crane.” The first sense of pedigree in the 15th
century was a “genealogical table.” Documents that recorded a family tree used
a three-line graph that apparently resembled the imprint of the bony foot of the crane (pied de grue
in French.) From the original meaning, the movement of the word to refer to
ones' lineage was an obvious adaptation and this change occurred within twenty-five
years of the adoption of the word from French.
Aftermath
Aftermath sounds as if it deals with your lamentations after
a trigonometry exam, but I assure you it has no connection to mathematics.
Also, if you associate the word with “nuclear,” take heart that the original
sense was far less catastrophic. The “math” segment is merely a variation of
the word “mow” and “aftermath” originally referred to the second mowing of
grass. The OED says that is the “crop
of grass which springs up after the mowing in early summer,” and in an 1860
issue of Farmer's Almanac there is a reference to a “good aftermath.”
Aftermath entered our language in the 15th
century and within one hundred and fifty years its dominant sense became an
invariably unpleasant condition that results from some important event.
RELIGION
I believe it is a fair assumption that in days gone by, when
most folks were God-fearing and hell-
aversive, religion played a larger role in the lives of individuals. As such,
it is not surprising that many words derive from religion. While some words
such as advent, shrift and crusade have an obvious religious origin, many
others’ religious connection is more shrouded. Here are two examples.
Charisma
If you believe charisma is a God-given attribute, you are in agreement with its first
definition found in the 17th century: “A free gift or favour
specially vouchsafed by God; a grace, a talent.” It was first used in a secular sense to mean
an aura one possesses and the power of
leadership or authority in by
sociologist Max Weber in 1922, Weber's work wasn't translated into
English until 1947 but the term was already used in English by the mid
1930s. Not surprisingly, by the middle
forties, the term was applied to political leaders in Germany and in the early sixties to JFK.
Gossip
The first definition of gossip in the OED in the eleventh century implies that (heaven forbid) going to
church can be dangerous to your health: “One who has contracted spiritual
affinity with another by acting as a sponsor at a baptism.” The etymology of this word is more
understandable once we realize that the first syllable comes from “God” and the
second from “sib” as in “sibling.” In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1386),
the Wife of Bath tells her fellow travellers to Canterbury about having once
promenaded with her lover and “my gossib
dame Alys.” Queen Elizabeth was the
“gossip” at the baptism of James VI of Scotland. But it could also refer to the women friends
of the gossip invited to the baptism. In Midsummer Night`s Dream, Puck
uses it in this sense: It must have been felt that there was too much
chattering at christenings because by the 17th century the dominant
sense of the word became “newsmonger.”
MILITARY
I don’t suppose that
many people would be surprised that several wors like campaign, echelon and
picket derive from military usages. But several other ones are more
camouflaged. Here are a couple of examples.
Loophole
Loopholes go back to the 13th century and it was
soldiers, not tax lawyers, that originally used them to their advantage. Then,
a loop referred to a narrow window and thus originally, a loophole referred to
the narrow vertical opening in medieval fortifications through which soldiers
could fire their projectiles at their enemies. The invention of gunpowder
diminished the military efficacy of these openings and the word came to refer
to any small opening in a wall that allowed in air and light. By 1663, it is used in a metaphorical sense
to refer to an outlet or means of escape.
In 1704, satirist Thomas Brown first used it in the sense it is often
used today of taking advantage of legal ambiguity: “Some of the Doctor's
Counsel has found out a Loop-hole for him in the Act.”
Deadline
Journalists who have problems dealing with deadlines can take
some comfort knowing that the word used
to refer to a far graver situation. The first definition of deadline in the OED is of “a line drawn around a
military prison, beyond which a prisoner is liable to be shot down.” During the American Civil War, at the
Confederate camp located in Andersonville,
Georgia, a line was actually marked out some distance from the outer wire
fence. Any Union prisoner crossing this line was shot on sight. This doesn’t sound very civil to me.
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