In my life time the word “gay” has had a dramatic meaning shift.\u00a0 “Gay” used to mean “exuberantly happy”.\u00a0 Now it is an informal word for homosexual.\u00a0 I’m not saying that this is a bad thing.\u00a0 There was a need for casual non-derogatory word for homosexual.\u00a0 “Gay” fit the bill perfectly.\u00a0 Now we need a word for “exuberantly happy.”<\/p>\n
The purpose of this post is to alert you to a similar word meaning shift that is occurring right now.\u00a0 “Special” means outside of the normal.\u00a0 Something “special” used to imply a good thing: a special relationship, a special treat or a special event.\u00a0 But that is changing.\u00a0 A decade or so ago “special” was taken by social workers and used instead of “retarded”or “handicapped.”\u00a0 So now we have special needs children and the Special Olympics and the meaning of “special” is shifting from different in a positive way to different in a negative way.<\/p>\n
We know that over time language changes and adapts.\u00a0 It is rare that we can hear it happening.\u00a0 Now that is special.<\/p>\n
Your assignment is to write me a comment on another word that has a meaning shift going on.\u00a0 Or, if you can’t think of one, my use of quotation marks in this piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my life time the word “gay” has had a dramatic meaning shift.\u00a0 “Gay” used to mean “exuberantly happy”.\u00a0 Now it is an informal word for homosexual.\u00a0 I’m not saying that this is a bad thing.\u00a0 There was a need for casual non-derogatory word for homosexual.\u00a0 “Gay” fit the bill perfectly.\u00a0 Now we need a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-simon-says"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99jGb-10j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3863"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3865,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}