Talk:Semantic change

Punk

It may be a cultural issue, but in North America 'Punk' certainly doesn't mean someone who doesn't stand up for themselves and gets pushed around. This example should be cut or fixed.--142.25.33.159 23:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC) It does in certain socio-cultural North American contexts such as hip-hop, urban, and inner-city communities and among younger people. You are right that there is an omission of the more widespread use of "punk" to mean a rebellious or badly behaved (usually young male) person.[reply]

Gay

Interesting article. But what exactly is your source on this:

it was picked up by homosexuals as an acronym for "Good As You

Do you have anything to support that the word was originally used among homosexuals as an acronym (which may be the case today), rather than as a euphemism? --JJay 22:19, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is my teacher good enough? If not, David Crystal mentions it in his encyclopedia of the English Language, which I did cite. Sonic Mew | talk to me 11:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sonic Mew and thanks for your response. I checked your cited source- (Crystal, David, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press; 2 edition, 2003). On page 134 he discusses the word “gay” but makes no mention of “good as you”. In fact this idea is examined at length on the Wikipedia Gay page (under folk etymologies), where “good as you'” is identified as a backronym (based on a fake etymology). I will therefore edit that part in your article. --JJay 14:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I didn't have the encyclopedia with me when I wrote the article because it was in my school library and my school had been IP-banned. Sonic Mew | talk to me 16:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality

I think an example of a word changing right now is nationality. Philosophically it's a concept all it's own - but in legal documents it's much more akin to citizenship (not exactly citizenship, but much closer to that than the old concept of nationality). And in common use "What is your nationality" is akin to "What is your ethnicity?" I'll leave it to the more experienced to decide whether or not to include this, but I wanted to bring it up to discussion. 1 December 2005

Cliché-ification

Is there a linguistic term for a the phenomenon of a word losing linguistic intensity (such as "spill", which once meant "to destroy"?) Does the opposite every occur? The Jade Knight 05:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A note to all editors

Please would editors not simply add sections on individual examples of semantic change, as the talk page suggests might happen. There few words in the Englush language (never mind others). If we are going to have examples, we should restrict them to clear examples which illustrate types of change, and we should include them within a section on the change, not separately. Controversial words like "gay" are more likely to be subjects of edit wars and/or vandalisation, so let's stick to things like notorious.--Nema Fakei 11:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]