XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.language.latin
From: office@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk

On 05 Oct 2024, Ed Cryer wrote

> Belladonna
> It acquired its alter name in the middle ages, when women used it
> because of how it dilates the pupils, making them more sexy.
> Beautiful Lady.
>
> Pagan.
> In Latin "paganus" meant "villager" or "peasant". That's what
> Cicero would have understood. But early Christians used it as a
> depreciatory term for those who stuck to polytheistic or
> pre-Christian beliefs; the gods of Old Rome.
>
> Is there a technical term for this way that words mutate in
> meaning? Do people know other examples?
>
There are many popular "now here's a funny thing" books out there on
etymology which cover this. A promising one (that I haven't seen) might
be "The Accidental Dictionary" by Paul Anthony Jones (2016).  Examples
from that -- taken from the description on the Guardian Bookshop site
-- include "buxom used to mean obedient"; "a cloud was a rock";  "nice
meant ignorant"; "glamour was magic", and so on.

I've only read reviews rather than the book itself, but it could be
useful -- 100 words in 224 pages, which gives more breathing space than
just another "today's meaning/old meaning" list.

[pet peeve time]

Most books of this sort -- which I suspect AUE readers often find under
the Christmas tree from well-meaning family and friends -- are aimed at
the easily bored, and seldom cite sources for their statements of fact,
often skating over most of the nuance or context of a word's evolution.

Take, for example, the statement that "Buxom used to mean obedient".
It can't be faulted on accuracy, but it's only part of the story, as
the word's meaning obviously didn't just jump from "obedient" to "full-
bosomed".

It took centuries to evolve from the "obedient, pliant" meaning (which
applied equally to men and women) to the current gender-specific sense
of "full-bosomed", by way of "submissive, humble, meek", to "gracious,
courteous, affable", on to "blithe, jolly", and then to "bright,
lively" and "full of health", vigorous", eventually reaching "plump and
comely" in the late C19, and finally becoming "full-bosomed" in the
second half of the C20.

Which makes a list that says not a lot more than "Buxom used to mean
obedient" rather thin stuff.

[end of pet peeve]

--
Cheers, Harvey

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)