Wednesday, July 8, 2009

INTERESTING WORDS AS CONCEPTS CHANGE

Words often suggest their own meaning but there are many that are 'surprisers'. Defenestrate has always sounded a bit ominous to me. Since it uses fenestra (French for window) it yielded a euphemism for getting rid of: throwing out the window, or another commonly used today, 'throwing someone under the bus'. Few people today would use it, sort of like deflorate, a word most people have never heard in today's world. However, once there was a concept of the 'flower of virginity'. (This preceded the invention and common use of Tampons.)

Thralldom was a psychiatric term one heard a few generations ago. It implied a virgin being bound, psychologically enthralled, to the man who claimed her virginity (deflowered her). It would be hardly likely that any mental health professionals today remember the term or have learned it...unless they are still alive with a working brain and over 80!

Scientists identified 10,000 year old words used today. Thus the words 'I', 'Who', 'We', 'Thou', 'Two', 'Three' and 'Five' registered little change. Words that will most likely disappear due to their rapid evolution are: 'dirty', 'squeeze', 'bad', 'because', 'guts', 'push' (verb), 'smell' (verb), 'stab', 'stick' (noun), 'turn' (verb), 'wipe'.

In 10,000 more years, I wonder if we will have to speak words or whether we will have something rigged up to our brains that does our talking for us!

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