The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a late-night Saturday memo, also threatened to impose financial penalties on states that did not comply with the government's new orders.
But, like, it does. Because language evolves, and history shows most who choose the Old Ways of Language as the hill to die on don’t win out.
So many of the word shifts that have conglomerated into new dialects, and eventually new languages, come from people who don’t feel like saying a whole word anymore, who combine 2+ words together, who lose the need for a word’s specific meaning and let it become something more general, etc.
NO. IT DOES NOT. WORDS DO NOT EVOLVE TO MEAN THEIR OPPOSITE ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE SPECIFIC TO WORDS THEMSELVES. INSANE CHAOS SUPPORTERS GTFO.
SIX IS NOT GOING TO MEAN NINE, EVER. (well okay maybe once for fun, or like in a substitution cipher or something.) “RUN” SHOULD NEVER MEAN “STAND STILL”. STEP AWAY FROM THE BONG.
Quora user Ben Waggoner had this to say about words evolving to mean their opposites:
Well, the classic example is “awful”, which used to mean, literally, “awe-full”, i.e. full of awe, awe-inspiring. It now generally means “really bad.”
In my long-passed Methodist childhood, the hymnal included a hymn that we never seemed to sing, called “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne”. I remember wondering as a lad why God would put up with a bad throne. . .
There’s an often-repeated story that when Christopher Wren completed building St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, King Charles II exclaimed that the building was “awful”, “artificial”, and “amusing.” Supposedly, this was actually meant as a compliment: “awful” meant awe-inspiring, “artificial” meant made with great art and skill, and “amusing” meant amazing. Hey, what do you know—words can change their meanings!
The truth is not quite that good a story. There is a documented royal warrant from Charles II that praises the plan of St. Paul’s as “very artificial, proper, and useful; as because it was so ordered that it might be built and finish’d by Parts”—so it’s true that St. Paul’s was called “artificial” in the sense of “designed with great art”, which I guess is another example of a word that has taken a very different meaning, if perhaps not the exact opposite of its original meaning. But the bits about “awful” and “amusing” seem to have accreted to the story much later. (And “amusing” originally meant “deceiving; deluding”; I don’t think it meant “amazing” at all, although I’ll check that.) Check out St Paul’s Cathedral Is Amusing, Awful, and Artificial for documentation.
Responding to the same question, Quora user Jennifer Bransfield offered:
What are examples of words which, archaichly, had the exact opposite meaning?
You can thank our West Coast surfers for some of these switcheroos:
Sick - used to mean ill, bad or unhealthy. Now it means something very good.
Dude - used to mean a man who works on a ranch. Now it is used as a gender-nonspecific pronoun. Yes, even women can be dudes.
Awesome - used to mean extremely worthy of awe. Now it can be used for ordinary things. It can also be used sarcastically to describe something that is not good. For example, “I think this toast is awesome because it has just the right amount of butter.” Or, “Awesome. I just lost my job.”
Because the dictionary covers the practical usage, and the misuse is as common as the actual use. The dictionary definition for litterally includes the formal “in a way that uses the ordinary or primary meaning of a term or expression” and the informal that means the exact opposite “statement or description that is not literally true or possible”
I find it kind of ironic to say it’s actual definition for literally includes effectively or it could also mean “not literally”
It’s even worse than that. It’s quite literally taking food BACK out of their mouths.
“quite literally” would mean there are federal officers or agents in people’s homes scraping chewed food out of children’s mouths.
I think you mean “virtually taking food BACK out of their mouths.”
I think you hit upon an idea they didn’t think about. ICE has a new role! Masked food police.
“No soup for you!”
Gives a new meaning to the soup nazi…
Anyone who tries to start that “literally also means figuratively” shit here is going to get shivved. By me.
Literally or figuratively?
But, like, it does. Because language evolves, and history shows most who choose the Old Ways of Language as the hill to die on don’t win out.
So many of the word shifts that have conglomerated into new dialects, and eventually new languages, come from people who don’t feel like saying a whole word anymore, who combine 2+ words together, who lose the need for a word’s specific meaning and let it become something more general, etc.
NO. IT DOES NOT. WORDS DO NOT EVOLVE TO MEAN THEIR OPPOSITE ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE SPECIFIC TO WORDS THEMSELVES. INSANE CHAOS SUPPORTERS GTFO.
SIX IS NOT GOING TO MEAN NINE, EVER. (well okay maybe once for fun, or like in a substitution cipher or something.) “RUN” SHOULD NEVER MEAN “STAND STILL”. STEP AWAY FROM THE BONG.
Quora user Ben Waggoner had this to say about words evolving to mean their opposites:
Responding to the same question, Quora user Jennifer Bransfield offered:
Yes, well, Quora notwithstanding ffs.
What an awful* response.
*Assume whichever meaning you prefer to.
Well it’s literally the 17th century.
🤔
You gotta realize even the dictionary has given up on this one…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
Because the dictionary covers the practical usage, and the misuse is as common as the actual use. The dictionary definition for litterally includes the formal “in a way that uses the ordinary or primary meaning of a term or expression” and the informal that means the exact opposite “statement or description that is not literally true or possible”
I find it kind of ironic to say it’s actual definition for literally includes effectively or it could also mean “not literally”
Merriam Webster hasn’t been the academic standard for decades. The Oxford one did not capitulate to trends.
Edit to add: https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Literally