I’m running across the suffix “-ical” added to some words, like “fantastical”, where now we say “fantastic”. There are other “-ical” words but I’m drawing a blank.
Has the meaning of “fantastic” changed? Now it means “great” or “awesome” or “wonderful”, but didn’t it used to mean something closer to “fantasy”?
“Aerial torpedo” instead of “bomb.”
Well, now you’re just makin’ stuff up.
In my Later American Literature course in college, I had to read the following two works by Horatio Alger, which were published in a double novel: Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward.
Yes, Dick used to be a common nickname for Richard, and Alger’s books had the theme of poor boys that made good, but still.
Also, I read a book published in the 1950’s, in which women wore girdles, which they referred to as “waist-nippers.”
I thought that an aerial torpedo was steerable… in other words, what we might call a guided missile (or even self-guided, like a cruise missile).
Then again, “missile” meant anything thrown, not something with its own power source.
I don’t think that one’s entirely lost; it’s just that there’s always a noun, pronoun, or possessive phrase between “give” and “head.” I think there always was. That is, you wouldn’t write, “The Lone Ranger gave Silver head,” but “The Lone Ranger gave Silver his head.”
Well, fantasy’s a noun and fantastic is an adjective, of course, but yes the meaning’s changed. Checking the OED, I find the oldest meanings were things like “existing only in the mind; unreal; fabulous” (that last word has obviously changed meaning in the same way), “pertaining to the nature of a phantasm,” and “extravagantly fanciful.”
In other news, an obsolete meaning of addiction is
[QUOTE=some dead white guy who worked for the Oxford English Dictionary. Let’s say JRR Tolkien. Or possibly Jackson Roykirk]
†2 Roman Law. A formal giving over by sentence of court; hence, a dedication of a person to a master. E17–L19.
[/QUOTE]
I am very fond of this meaning and am working hard to bring it back to currency. Both bribes and extortion are involved though I have not yet had to bring out the shotgun.
Drug fiend instead of drug addict. The current book I’m reading is using it over and over.
I’d say Portiere, which this same author uses in all his books, but portiere is a doorway curtain which is a specific type not just a general curtain.
I’m reading the first Albert Campion book and he often refers to someone as a queer fellow.
I still say “fantastical” to mean “fanciful” but then I’m weird.
For that matter, “torpedo” where we’d use “bomb” or “mine,” today.
Even before that, nice meant foolish or silly.
Here’s something I recently learned (probably not a surprise to some of you); the torpedo was named after a fish, a type of ray, that gives electric shocks. I had no idea, and just thought it was named after somebody or was Latin for something (it is, for “numbness”).
That was Murray Leinster med-ship series. “A logic named Joe” was also Murray Leinster. Not only was it a computer, but it was a PC, connected to a world wide network that used a search engine to answer any question. But the information was stored on micro-film. Amazingly prescient. The story was from the mid 1940s.
For some reason, I started rereading some old Murray Leinster a few weeks ago. It turned out they weren’t very good, not nearly as good as they seemed 50 and 60 years ago. But the logic named Joe was amazing. Joe was a rogue who answered questions (“How do I commit a perfect murder?”) that filters were supposed to filter out.
There is a (probably apocryphal) story that Queen Anne described the newly built St Paul’s Cathedral as “awful, terrible and artificial”
awful - it fills her with awe
terrible - it fills her with terror
artificial - constructed with tremendous skill
Sad as a colour, particularly for clothing, “a sad cloured gown” I think it meant grey.
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
What?
Good example of that one in Treasure Island:
See my skeptical comments on this in post #13. By post #30 he admitted that a quick search through where he thought it might be didn’t disclose any examples. I encouraged him to keep looking. If such a thing exists, it’d bre interesting. But I doubt it – I don’t think SF writers and editors were ever that naive. Others have also expressed their skepticism.
I wonder if Harmonious Discord is misremembering some penile-near-synonym like phallus.