[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
And everybody’s already mentioned my favorite meaning-shifted words, so I’ll bestow one of my favorite bits of American Civil War slang on you: “Absquatulate,” meaning to get drunk.
[/QUOTE]
Really? I thought its only meaning was to run away. Link.
I’m quite interested to know because my fantasy baseball team is called the Absquatulating Sockdolagers.
From Ravenmabn’s link:
???
I’ve heard of skedaddle and hornswoggle, but I’ve never come across sockdologer before Raven’s post. And i thought I was reasonably well-read.
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja]
I don’t have any I can think of right now, I just wanted to mention that I never did realize this until I stared at Lord of the Rings maps for far, far too long. When I saw the Baranduin, I rolled the word around in my head, rolled it around… and suddenly a light came on.
Brandywine!
It’s a teensy name that says so much about the history of the place, the time that’s passed…
…mm, I still seem to have some geek on my shoes from the Harry Potter showing. 
[/QUOTE]
Does it have a blacksmith?
My favorite is “Boogie”, which comes ultimately from Bulgaria, and now means “dancing”, basically.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I’ve never come across sockdologer before Raven’s post. And i thought I was reasonably well-read.
[/QUOTE]
Prodigal is a word that seems to be in the process of changing its meaning.
It means “recklessly extravagant” or “wasteful,” but it seems like most people are using it to mean “wayward” or “gone astray.”
People are familiar with the Biblical parable of the prodigal son, I suppose, and they mistakenly assume that the adjective prodigal refers to the fact that he wandered away from home, when in fact it refers to his spendthrift habits.
If a critical mass of people use it to mean “wayward,” though, the original meaning may go by the wayside.
Slightly off topic, and likely an urban legend, but the story goes that Charles Perrault’s version of Cinderella was mistranslated from ‘fur slipper’ (pantoufle de vair) into the version that survives today in popular (and Disney) retellings–‘glass slipper’ (pantoufle de verre).
[QUOTE=Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]
“Marlin” as in the fish comes from “marlin spike,” a tool used to work marlins (i.e., “moor lines”). The fish was obviously named for the tool, not the rope that the tool is used for.
And I think “dolphin,” which originally referred only to a mammal, became ascribed also to a type of fish due to sailor corruption of the existing word “dorado” (cf. “turtle” earlier in the thread).
[/QUOTE]
And torpedo, in the military sense, is also named after a fish, the electric ray:
[QUOTE=answers.com]
Any of various tropical or subtropical marine fishes of the family Torpedinidae, having a rounded body and a pair of organs capable of producing an electric discharge, which is used to stun or kill prey. Also called crampfish, numbfish; Also called torpedo.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
Slightly off topic, and likely an urban legend, but the story goes that Charles Perrault’s version of Cinderella was mistranslated from ‘fur slipper’ (pantoufle de vair) into the version that survives today in popular (and Disney) retellings–‘glass slipper’ (pantoufle de verre).
[/QUOTE]
Snopes, among others says that the mis-translation theory is wrong. They cite the fact that in the original edition, the word is written “verre” and not “vair” and that by the time Perrault wrote the story, “vair” was not a word in common usage. Here’s a link to an early edition, where you can see the “verre” spelling.
However, the idea that Perrault did, indeed, mean “fur” and not “glass” is common and fairly well accepted in the French world. For instance, Émile Littré, in his famous dictionary notes:
The Trésor de la langue française has a similar entry:
The Trésor follows with a quote by Balzac:
From what I’ve read, it appears that this comment by Balzac is in great part responsible for setting the idea that the slipper was of fur and not glass in French literary circles.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Awful–something that filled you with awe. Awesome used to mean the same thing as awful. Of course something awesome can be scary, so the meaning of awful started to morph into “terrifying”, and then to mean terrible and then to simply mean really bad.
[/QUOTE]
Similarly, wonderful meant “filled with wonders”- more akin to mysterious/puzzling or even “horribly wrong” than it’s used now (delightful, excellent).
Regarding sockdolager, there’s actually a play called SOCKDOLOGY about the actors on stage the night Lincoln was killed. Not a great one, but one that I’ve seen professionally staged once and advertisements for at several colleges.
Mad-was “insane”, now means “angry”.
Vulgar-was simply the common language of a certain geographical region instead of the Latin of the intelligencia, now describes any crude and/or sexual speech or behavior.
Simple-was “retarded”, now “uncomplicated…un-complex…easy”.
Well I knew coney meant rabbit. As in Bunny Island. I’ve also heard it’s distantly related to cunt, as far as relating woman’s genitals to small furry animals.
Uptight orginally all put together, smooth as per the song" Everything is all right.
Uptight. Out of sight.", before it meant repressed, anxious, conventional.
People called sharks and shrimps are not being named for an animal. The animal was named for the lawyers and the short people.
[QUOTE=Miller]
He did when he offered “man of the city” as the root for “policeman” in one of his Nightwatch books.
[/QUOTE]
Eh? The dictionary says Police came from:
Bit of a journey to get back to city, but not a complete fabrication, as far as I can see.
betenoir writes:
I think that relationship to female genitals is a happy coincidence. “cunt” is pretty much acknowledged to derive from Latin cuneus = “wedge” (from the shape), and not etymologically related to “coney”/“cunny” = rabbit at all. But the verbal similarity of the names must have appealed to people (men, I’ll bet), you saw “small, warm, furry animal” as an appropriate image. Sort of like “pussy”.
[QUOTE=Enola Straight]
Mad-was “insane”, now means “angry”.
[/QUOTE]
Still has the original meaning 95% of the time in Britain.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
betenoir writes:
I think that relationship to female genitals is a happy coincidence. “cunt” is pretty much acknowledged to derive from Latin cuneus = “wedge” (from the shape), and not etymologically related to “coney”/“cunny” = rabbit at all. But the verbal similarity of the names must have appealed to people (men, I’ll bet), you saw “small, warm, furry animal” as an appropriate image. Sort of like “pussy”.
[/QUOTE]
I read that although no one is sure of the origin of pussy, one theory is that it may be derived from the french word for pocket. The fact that cats are also called pussies may be completely cooincidental.
Interesting that furryman contributes this.
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom]
Decimate has morphed from “reduce by one-tenth” to “wipe off the face of the earth.” So instead of having 90% of what you started with, you have nothing.
For some reason, this usage irritates me to no end. I suppose I should just get over it.
[/QUOTE]
They made a point of using the term correctly in the last episode of Doctor Who. (Episode titled: Last of the Time Lords)
You would have been proud.
Well, sorta. “Decimate” is derived from “decimation,” which meant taxation of 10%, and so far predates (16th century) the verb in any written record (17th century). The primary meaning of the verb (long since fallen into desuetude) meant killing or exection of 10%. So, it’s actually evolved twice. Sorta. I think the similarity in sound to “devastate” might account for the more current usage.
I’ve never heard of any intermediate stage regarding taxation. Every derivation I’ve heard of “decimate” takes it directly from the ancient meaning of “killing 1 in 10”. Do you have a cite for the taxation stage?