How some English words have changed their meaning over time.
Not all is as it seems, sometimes! When it comes to the meaning of English words the course of time really can change things quite dramatically.
Take the word “nice”, for example. This word comes from the Latin word “nescius”, which means “ignorant”. Back in the 1500s it was used in English as a way of expressing that something was silly or foolish. Its meaning then developed into something more negative as it became associated with qualities such as wantonness and cowardice. By the latter stages of the Middle Ages the word was used to describe more neutral qualities such being reserved or shy. It wasn’t until we reached the 18th century that “nice” saw a total turnaround and fully achieved its status of describing something pleasant!
It’s also fascinating how the word “decimate” came about. We know it now as meaning to obliterate something completely but when it emerged as a word during Roman times its meaning was much more literal: to kill one in 10. It has quite a sinister origin… When the Roman army were the dominant force in Europe in the 5th century BC, killing one in 10 was a strategy used by the army to instil fear and loyalty among their own soldiers! Incredibly the soldiers would draw lots and then one in every 10 soldiers were killed by their own colleagues. This wasn’t the only threat to the soldiers – if they were deemed to have misbehaved in any way, they would face the same fate.
Another Roman related word that means something entirely different is the word “addict”. In Roman times addicts were people who had no money who were then forced to give themselves up as slaves to those they owed money to. The Latin word addictus meant “a debtor awarded as a slave to his creditor” and this is exactly where the word “addict” came from. It wasn’t until we reached the early 20th century that the word began to be associated initially with being dependent on morphine and then later with other drugs too.
A “blockbuster” wasn’t always a Hollywood hit either. It quite literally meant a bomb that was big enough to destroy a block of buildings. This all came about during WW2 when the RAF developed these extraordinary weapons, the first of which was used on the German city of Emden during an air raid in March 1941. It was the press that began to use the term “blockbuster” and it soon became a term people heard regularly throughout the war when these devastating raids were reported. Once the war was over the military references fell away and whilst it still means something of great power or size, it’s within a modern context of movies or books.
Some words have even been known to change sex! This is true for two different words: “girl” and “bimbo”. During the Middle Ages “girl” originally meant “child” so could refer to either gender. By the time we reached the 16th century the word “boy” became more commonly used to describe a young man and so the meaning of “girl” had to change or risk falling away altogether. “Bimbo” actually comes from the Italian word “bambino” which means baby boy. It was used in theatrical circles as something to describe “one of the boys”. As it evolved it then came to mean a “stupid, inconsequential man or contemptible person”. By the 1920s though, the meaning took a completely different direction when a song was written for a Broadway revue called My Little Bimbo Down On The Bamboo Isle, which surprisingly referred not to a man, but to a beautiful, voluptuous woman. Then throughout the 1920s Variety magazine in the US commonly used the word “bimbo” to describe a woman with low morals – a floozie.
One thing is for certain: the English language will continue to adapt and change over time, just as it always has done. One of the biggest influences in change in the modern world is with the development of areas such as technology & social media and the need for new words to describe them. Think “selfies” and “LOL” which only entered the Oxford English dictionary in the last 5 years. But the more traditional influences such as other languages and culture are just as relevant to the development of the language. For example, with over 300 different languages spoken in London alone, there is talk of a new dialect emerging in the capital called Multicultural London English which is could become the new Cockney. Watch this space!
It’s full steam ahead for the English language!