On the changing meaning of words
Feb. 1st, 2009 01:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm interested in this partly because it overlaps so much with what we're doing in class this year: how meaning drifts over time.
We've studied Chaucer English and Shakespeare English and obviously we talk Now English.
There's better words for all of that but I don't rightly know them because class isn't from that angle and I hadn't found an interesting way in yet.
So everything I write down here I learned from trying to look stuff up in the backs of books or on dictionary.com. Reliable: I no has it.
But I found interesting:
There's word uses in there that are incredibly insulting, war starters, in one era, the common useage of another, and just not used now. Try calling the wrong person 'thou'... or try even noticing it now 'thou' has fallen out of useage.
And then there's 'recreant'. I looked up that word when reading about Lancelot and Arthur, because it seemed to be the turning point in a big fight. There's dictionary meanings that say it means cowardly, which is bad enough to call a knight. But the real sharp edge is using it to mean traitor, as in literal get your head chopped off disloyalty. Coward is a meaning one could conceivably ignore, but traitor? That you have to fight, or else suffer the penalty.
So now there's a big argue about nithing. I read the word and skipped over it as a typo, honestly. Calling people nothings is rude, but I ignored.
So now there's a fascinating discussion going on about what nithing means, as an actual word.
(I say fascinating - skip over any part that doesn't cite sources and it stays more interesting)
People are linking to lots of specialist dictionaries, ancient and contemporary, some with English in the name and some not. Apparently it's a word in current useage among some subcultures in English and as part of a compound word in some Scandinavian languages. There's also links to cites from Old Norse, Old English, and Middle English. And the meaning has become complicated by using it as a translation, giving it connotations not present in the source text. So to everyone in the argument the word means something different, and they've all got different reasons to believe that meaning.
It's such a classic example of the changeable nature of words, the way they change over time, fall out of use, get used differently by different groups.
And it's a classic of why this matters.
There's no good meanings of the word, but the Middle English link says it means 'good for nothing', pretty much like it sounded to me, while the discussion from Old Norse roots understands it to mean a vile monster that should be killed on sight, and current useage reserves the word for child molesters and those who kill innocents.
It's not exactly a precisely graded insult, and what the user in question meant by it is hard to see, apart from meaning to dismiss the group it was aimed at. Dismiss as ignorable or dismiss with violence are both possible readings of the word. Rather important difference, quite lost in the obscurity of the word.
It's also a classic of internet argument. There's people quoting wiki, saying how for once it's fully cited. Quoting the cites direct might help, wiki having the rep it does, but they seem to all be in German. But someone else just says 'wiki is wrong' without any textual references, and to be fair Wiki has a note since December saying it needs rewriting. And then there's this, which calls itself an encyclopedia but if you scroll up to the top is just a copy of Wiki, and an older one at that. There's people quoting online dictionaries, offline dictionaries, and specialist academic books about words. Some of those are available to everyone who clicks a link, others are only available to people with the right (academic and/or paid for) access. With data sources valued so differently and accessible so differently it's hard to see how different parties can come to any agreement.
I have no conclusion here, aside from deciding using rude words is highly hazardous and probably a bad idea, no matter or in fact especially if they're archaic or obscure. It's not good to hurt people, and especially stupid when some of the scale of hurt might not be intended.
But as a language study it's interesting, especially because it's important and relevant right now.
We've studied Chaucer English and Shakespeare English and obviously we talk Now English.
There's better words for all of that but I don't rightly know them because class isn't from that angle and I hadn't found an interesting way in yet.
So everything I write down here I learned from trying to look stuff up in the backs of books or on dictionary.com. Reliable: I no has it.
But I found interesting:
There's word uses in there that are incredibly insulting, war starters, in one era, the common useage of another, and just not used now. Try calling the wrong person 'thou'... or try even noticing it now 'thou' has fallen out of useage.
And then there's 'recreant'. I looked up that word when reading about Lancelot and Arthur, because it seemed to be the turning point in a big fight. There's dictionary meanings that say it means cowardly, which is bad enough to call a knight. But the real sharp edge is using it to mean traitor, as in literal get your head chopped off disloyalty. Coward is a meaning one could conceivably ignore, but traitor? That you have to fight, or else suffer the penalty.
So now there's a big argue about nithing. I read the word and skipped over it as a typo, honestly. Calling people nothings is rude, but I ignored.
So now there's a fascinating discussion going on about what nithing means, as an actual word.
(I say fascinating - skip over any part that doesn't cite sources and it stays more interesting)
People are linking to lots of specialist dictionaries, ancient and contemporary, some with English in the name and some not. Apparently it's a word in current useage among some subcultures in English and as part of a compound word in some Scandinavian languages. There's also links to cites from Old Norse, Old English, and Middle English. And the meaning has become complicated by using it as a translation, giving it connotations not present in the source text. So to everyone in the argument the word means something different, and they've all got different reasons to believe that meaning.
It's such a classic example of the changeable nature of words, the way they change over time, fall out of use, get used differently by different groups.
And it's a classic of why this matters.
There's no good meanings of the word, but the Middle English link says it means 'good for nothing', pretty much like it sounded to me, while the discussion from Old Norse roots understands it to mean a vile monster that should be killed on sight, and current useage reserves the word for child molesters and those who kill innocents.
It's not exactly a precisely graded insult, and what the user in question meant by it is hard to see, apart from meaning to dismiss the group it was aimed at. Dismiss as ignorable or dismiss with violence are both possible readings of the word. Rather important difference, quite lost in the obscurity of the word.
It's also a classic of internet argument. There's people quoting wiki, saying how for once it's fully cited. Quoting the cites direct might help, wiki having the rep it does, but they seem to all be in German. But someone else just says 'wiki is wrong' without any textual references, and to be fair Wiki has a note since December saying it needs rewriting. And then there's this, which calls itself an encyclopedia but if you scroll up to the top is just a copy of Wiki, and an older one at that. There's people quoting online dictionaries, offline dictionaries, and specialist academic books about words. Some of those are available to everyone who clicks a link, others are only available to people with the right (academic and/or paid for) access. With data sources valued so differently and accessible so differently it's hard to see how different parties can come to any agreement.
I have no conclusion here, aside from deciding using rude words is highly hazardous and probably a bad idea, no matter or in fact especially if they're archaic or obscure. It's not good to hurt people, and especially stupid when some of the scale of hurt might not be intended.
But as a language study it's interesting, especially because it's important and relevant right now.