Look what we've done to the old mother tongue
Thanks to Eric Bogle for the title of this post. Just thinking recently for some reason about the changing meanings of some trendy words:
"Gay": No, not going to rant about how "gay" used to mean "happy" and those damn hommasexshuls co-opted it. "Gay" has undergone a weird transformation. I hear younger folks using it as a synonym for weird, strange, goofy. I remember Boss Lady (early 30s) a few years back reading us something she'd written, prefaced by: "Does this sound gay?" She didn't mean "Does this sound homosexual?" She meant, "Does this sound not quite right?" Best I can conclude is that "gay" now has the old meaning of "queer" -- as in "weird." Of course, the gay community has taken back the word "queer" and taken the sting out of it. It's all quite ... strange.
"Diva": I've always thought of this as a description for a star, usually a singer and always female, whose talent, star quality and personality were all larger than life: Maria Callas, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Diana Ross. It's morphed into an insult relatively equivalent to "self-centered bitch who thinks she's all that" or alternately, "female celeb riding a wave of popularity." Or both. Britney, you are not a diva. You're just embarrassing. You too, Faith.
"Princess": For those of us raised on fairy tales, it conjures up images of a sweet, lovely girl with the good fortune to have been born into royalty and who gets to wear beautiful dresses and marry a prince. If we were lucky, we had daddies who called us princess. Now, like "diva," it's an insult, applied to spoiled bitches who consider themselves entitled. Lookin' at you, KJ! You too, Paris! I guess it started in the '70s with the term "Jewish-American Princess." This one bugs me because I look at my cat Rozita and think princess because she is a delicate beauty with classy, not-alley-cat looks, but every time I call her the P word, I wince inside because I've heard the word used as an insult so many times lately.
I'm not losing sleep over these little changes in TOMT, just sayin'. But isn't it refreshing to read a post that's not about my navel gazing? I am such a diva!
"Gay": No, not going to rant about how "gay" used to mean "happy" and those damn hommasexshuls co-opted it. "Gay" has undergone a weird transformation. I hear younger folks using it as a synonym for weird, strange, goofy. I remember Boss Lady (early 30s) a few years back reading us something she'd written, prefaced by: "Does this sound gay?" She didn't mean "Does this sound homosexual?" She meant, "Does this sound not quite right?" Best I can conclude is that "gay" now has the old meaning of "queer" -- as in "weird." Of course, the gay community has taken back the word "queer" and taken the sting out of it. It's all quite ... strange.
"Diva": I've always thought of this as a description for a star, usually a singer and always female, whose talent, star quality and personality were all larger than life: Maria Callas, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Diana Ross. It's morphed into an insult relatively equivalent to "self-centered bitch who thinks she's all that" or alternately, "female celeb riding a wave of popularity." Or both. Britney, you are not a diva. You're just embarrassing. You too, Faith.
"Princess": For those of us raised on fairy tales, it conjures up images of a sweet, lovely girl with the good fortune to have been born into royalty and who gets to wear beautiful dresses and marry a prince. If we were lucky, we had daddies who called us princess. Now, like "diva," it's an insult, applied to spoiled bitches who consider themselves entitled. Lookin' at you, KJ! You too, Paris! I guess it started in the '70s with the term "Jewish-American Princess." This one bugs me because I look at my cat Rozita and think princess because she is a delicate beauty with classy, not-alley-cat looks, but every time I call her the P word, I wince inside because I've heard the word used as an insult so many times lately.
I'm not losing sleep over these little changes in TOMT, just sayin'. But isn't it refreshing to read a post that's not about my navel gazing? I am such a diva!
posted by niicelaady @ 9:39 PM
1 Comments:
At 10:54 PM,
KateGladstone said…
For the man who complains about people using words in senses which the dictionary has yet to record:
HAIL TO THEE, O ENGLISH USAGE PURIST
by Kate Gladstone
(tune: "The Irish Rover")
People say the English tongue
Is coming quite unsprung,
When words get new meanings, lose the ones they had.
Check the Oxford Dictionary,
And you'll find this isn't scary,
Degenerate, or new, or even bad.
In the days of Chaucer, once
You called your friend a DUNCE,
And meant he was a high-class intellectual:
But if you called somebody NICE,
What you meant, to be precise,
Was to label him as dim and ineffectual.
CHORUS: They lament what we've done
To the old mother tongue,
Howling "crime" and claiming multitudes misuse it ...
If they'd practice what they preach,
They'd speak eight-hundred-year-old speech ...
If they won't, they shouldn't say that we abuse it.
If you call word-changes bad,
And you say they make you SAD --
This, eight hundred years ago, meant down-to-earth ...
If all usage must be old,
Then STARVE is "die of cold,"
And AMUSED is "stunned," instead of "touched by mirth".
NAUGHTY now means nothing much --
An infant's prank or such --
But long ago in Chaucer's day medieval,
Or even Shakespeare's time,
It meant "hostile", "prone to crime",
"Worthless" (morally, or otherwise), and "evil."
CHORUS:
If you call a girl a HUSSY,
And she gets all mean and fussy,
Say you haven't cast aspersions on her life,
Tell her that your speech is pure,
And she therefore should be sure
That you meant -- like men of old -- she's a "housewife."
Find an English-usage smarty
And invite him to a party.
Offer POISON. He will think you've lost your mind.
You should whine and act offended
That your friendship now is ended,
Like the former meaning: "drink of any kind."
CHORUS:
He'll call your behavior AWFUL.
As a compliment it's lawful
To accept this, for as such it has no flaw --
If words mustn't ever change
To new meanings, it's not strange
That he kindly found his host "inspiring awe."
If they call me SILLY, I'll
Just bow my head and smile --
For this once meant "holy," also "full of joy" --
So this word you surely may
Use of anyone today
Whose devotion to old meanings might annoy.
CHORUS:
I hope you liked this song,
And you didn't find it long --
Call it PRETTY and I'll know just how you feel:
If changed meanings are obscene,
"Crafty's" all that word may mean,
And the meaning of "attractive" can't be real!
CHORUS:
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