I loved the examples of semantic shift, how fascinating! My favourite English one might be “terrific”, which comes from the same root as “terror”. Its meaning was very confusing to me when I was learning the language, coming from a Latin language background.
I loved the examples of semantic shift, how fascinating! My favourite English one might be “terrific”, which comes from the same root as “terror”. Its meaning was very confusing to me when I was learning the language, coming from a Latin language background.
Great comment, Lou. You got me wondering whether semantic shift occurs in all languages, and it seems it does. Here's an interesting educational piece from the National Science Foundation that touches on this and a host of other language matters. https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/LanguageandLinguisticsIntroduction.pdf