English words of 'recent' origin - Page 2

pdurrant · 05-27-2014, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I was just reading an annotated Jane Austen (Emma) that commented "in-between" was only coming into vogue at the time the book was written.

In-between just sneaks in, first recorded use is 1815!

HarryT · 05-27-2014, 07:18 AM

A good one is the verb "to gerrymander" which was coined in 1812, when Governor Gerry of Massachusetts redrew political boundaries so tortuously that a newspaper editor claimed that one district had acquired the shape of a salamander.

HarryT · 05-27-2014, 07:27 AM

Some uses of nouns as verbs are surprisingly recent. Eg, "to access" (meaning "to gain access to") was coined as a computing term in 1962. Prior to that, the word existed only as a noun.

WT Sharpe · 05-27-2014, 07:48 AM

In addition to words of recent origin, there are words whose meaning has completely changed over the years. For example, the phrase "by and by" is most often defined as an unspecified, future time and place, but in 1611, when the King James Version of the Bible was published, it meant "immediately."

HarryT · 05-27-2014, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

In addition to words of recent origin, there are words whose meaning has completely changed over the years. For example, the phrase "by and by" is most often defined as an unspecified, future time and place, but in 1611, when the King James Version of the Bible was published, it meant "immediately."

As indeed, also happened to the word "presently", which originally meant "now" (ie "at the present time"), but now means "in a while".

The word which has changed its meaning most often over the course of the centuries is perhaps the word "nice", which originally (in the 12th century) meant "foolish" or "ignorant", had acquired the meaning of "fussy" by the 14th c, "precise" or "careful" by the 16th (which we still retain in phrases like "a nice distinction"), "agreeable" by 1769, and "kind" by 1830. It has so many meanings that the OED says "In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken".

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05-27-2014, 07:18 AM	#17
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	A good one is the verb "to gerrymander" which was coined in 1812, when Governor Gerry of Massachusetts redrew political boundaries so tortuously that a newspaper editor claimed that one district had acquired the shape of a salamander.

05-27-2014, 07:27 AM	#18
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Some uses of nouns as verbs are surprisingly recent. Eg, "to access" (meaning "to gain access to") was coined as a computing term in 1962. Prior to that, the word existed only as a noun.

05-27-2014, 07:48 AM	#19
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,073 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	In addition to words of recent origin, there are words whose meaning has completely changed over the years. For example, the phrase "by and by" is most often defined as an unspecified, future time and place, but in 1611, when the King James Version of the Bible was published, it meant "immediately."