#word evolution

[mikauzoran]

From Guerre to War

In her lecture concerning English words borrowed from French, Anne Curzan said that English had gotten “war” from French.

My first thought was, “That’s not right. The French word for war is “guerre”. That doesn’t even sound similar.”

Apparently, Parisian French and Anglo-Norman French had some key differences in pronunciation. In Anglo-Norman French, the g in guerre made a wa sound, so...war.

[mikauzoran]

From Clew to Clue

I’m currently listening to a series of lectures entitled The Secret Life of Words with Anne Curzan through The Great Courses, and it is fascinating. It’s all about the origin and evolution of the English language. If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a tremendous language nerd, so this is just my cup of tea (of which I am also an avid fan).

One really interesting thing I learned from the course is the origin of the word “clue” to mean a hint or something that guides. It comes from the word “clew”, meaning a ball of yarn. If you google “clew definition” you get the below:

3. (Archaic) a ball of thread (used especially with reference to the thread supposedly used by Theseus to mark his way out of the Cretan labyrinth).

From “clew” used in the myth to guide Theseus, we get “clue”s that guide investigations and give hints at the answer. 

[aradiabot612]

twink went from sexual to gay insult to skinny man insult to f slur replacement to fetishized sexual word

[skeleton-bat]

I hate how the word and connotations for empathy have been so changed and misconstrued. Like it's a good word to explain that an individual feels others feelings but than that got picked up by a specific group to mean that they were somehow better or superior and as a backlash to that it than got taken and used to mean someone who is hateful.

Like I get that words change and evolve over time that's just the natural process, but it royaly sucks because something as simple as just a descriptor got completly twisted in more ways than one.

Empathy used to mean a person just feels other people's emotions. It had nothing to do with whether a person was right, morally just, or even compassionate but we can never have anything nice because specific groups of people decide to take things for themselves and that also includes words.

Anyways I wish we could go back to just using empathy as a descriptor word while understanding that feeling other people's emotions doesn't mean anything else except that they can just feel or absorb the emotions of others. That's it. No deeper context or weird turn around to try and make it seem like something else. Just a simple word meaning x feels y.

[quillfulwriter]

"Kamikaze used to mean 'divine wind', but... It means something else now." - @taki118 2017

[nerdy-and-somewhat-quirky]

Word evolution

Arkansas Arkansauce Arcansauce Ourcannedsauce Comegetitatyourlocalwalmartfor$5.99itsyum

[infjlogic]

OK, so I am progressive… but I think I’ll identify as progressivus instead.

(Check out the graph: it appears the peak usage of the term was maybe in the 70s. That’s definitely good to know.)

[whatiwouldhaveemailed]

They were scandalized that Stanton had spoken to a "promiscuous crowd." That's one of the great phrases from the mid-19th century; it really just refers to a mixed crowd of men and women.

Prof. Edward T. O'Donnell, Turning Points in American History

L41: "1960 - The Power to Choose: The Pill"