I resisted these changes back in the dark ages of the eighties, before we had the Internet. I refused to let the word 'bad' mean 'good.' I hated it when my best friend used the terms 'killer' or 'killeracious' (thankfully that last one didn't stick.) Time passed. I got over myself. Mostly, I now wonder if there's more slang than in the past, because I sometimes can't understand what all the modern slang means. Ironically, I use the Internet regularly to look up slang words in the urban dictionary.
Egregious comes from Latin "ex grege" meaning "out of the herd"...a standout or outstanding like a black sheep in a white herd. Nominative grex : flock. So technically egregious could be used for either something positive or negative.
It's endlessly fascinating to track our use of words. Many new words come from corrupted pronunciations of old words, and have come to have the opposite meanings; for example, "hussy" is a corruption of "housewife," and "bedlam" is a corruption of "Bethlehem," which was the name of an insane asylum in England. As for -y endings, I have a friend who avoids crowded restaurants because, she says, they're too Covidy.
Thank you! And howdy from across the country.
I resisted these changes back in the dark ages of the eighties, before we had the Internet. I refused to let the word 'bad' mean 'good.' I hated it when my best friend used the terms 'killer' or 'killeracious' (thankfully that last one didn't stick.) Time passed. I got over myself. Mostly, I now wonder if there's more slang than in the past, because I sometimes can't understand what all the modern slang means. Ironically, I use the Internet regularly to look up slang words in the urban dictionary.
I wish they’d spin a new word for spinster. 😏
Yes, it feels judgmental and archaic, doesn’t it. Needs something equivalent to the shift from “childless” to “child free”!
Egregious comes from Latin "ex grege" meaning "out of the herd"...a standout or outstanding like a black sheep in a white herd. Nominative grex : flock. So technically egregious could be used for either something positive or negative.
It's endlessly fascinating to track our use of words. Many new words come from corrupted pronunciations of old words, and have come to have the opposite meanings; for example, "hussy" is a corruption of "housewife," and "bedlam" is a corruption of "Bethlehem," which was the name of an insane asylum in England. As for -y endings, I have a friend who avoids crowded restaurants because, she says, they're too Covidy.
It is fascinating how words change.
Covidy! That's so great.