[Multilingual Monday] Semantic Shifts

[aadroma]

It's somewhat well-known that the English word awful had a far different meaning about 300 years ago or so. At that point in time, it meant "majestic" -- being full of awe (awe having gone from "something that provides terror" and gradually shifted due to interpratations of the wonders of God, the original source of "fear" from the original

Comments

[scream4noreason]

Interesting.I wonder when the term "godawful" came into use?

Not exactly the same thing....

[dodgingwndshlds]

This is not an example of a shift in meaning, as much as an example of how meaning is arrived at through paradigm, but this entry reminded me of this fun ASL culture fact:

In Deaf culture, the term "Very hard of hearing" is used to describe a person who can hear almost normally.

It makes sense, really. ASL is not English, and Deaf people share a unique culture, but that culture did come to be under the larger umbrella of American English. Hard of hearing is a term often used to describe those folks who wear hearing aids and say "What?" and talk loudly.

Deaf/ASL culture sees the action of speaking, even to ask for a repetition, as an aspect of hearing culture. Therefore, someone who acts like a hearing person, who can hear well enough to speak and carry on an (albeit loud) vocal conversation, would be closer to a hearing person than to a Deaf person from a Deaf person's perspective.

Therefore, the term" very hard of hearing" puts them on the spectrum closer to hearing than to Deaf.

[lotophagous]

my personal favourite: O.E. blac "white, bright"

[scream4noreason]

I just remembered that anything thats "fully sick" is supposed to be very good.

[robearal]

"Let", up to Early Modern English meant "Prevent". Now it means the opposite, "allow"