A word used constantly that really bothers me is "conversate". I know it's correct but it really just grates on me. Just say "converse" for god's sake!!!
Etymology (Word Origins)
- Thread starter Dingleberry
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HSanders
Cracker bitch
"conversate" is 200 year old slang that i never heard used until the 90s. i don't use it.
conversate | Etymology of conversate by etymonline
"have conversation," attested by 1888 in literary representations of African-American… See origin and meaning of conversate.
www.etymonline.com
What @HSanders said about it being slang.
Something that English purists (I am selectively one of these) often dislike is the tendency for slang words to be adopted as proper English words over time. However, it's been happening for a long long time.
There are many words with which we (slightly older generation) have no issues that started as slang. Even some of my earlier examples in this thread started as slang, whether it be in the1500's or 1900's.
It's just annoying when it's a stupid ass fucking modern slang word! LOL.
You are correct, by the way. "Conversate" is a moronic fucking fake word. Fuck everyone who uses it!
I told you I was a selective English language purist.
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
I also can’t stand those verbs that should obviously remain in noun form. I’m glad you opined that.You are correct, by the way. "Conversate" is a moronic fucking fake word. Fuck everyone who uses it!
I told you I was a selective English language purist.
That's an interesting opinion. Let's workshop that later.
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
“I’m really getting short of breath here!” he ejaculated.
Come again?
token (n.)
Old English tacen "sign, symbol, evidence, portent" (related to verb tæcan "show, explain, teach"), from Proto-Germanic *taikna- (source also of Old Saxon tekan, Old Norse teikn "zodiac sign, omen, token," Old Frisian tekan, Middle Dutch teken, Dutch teken, Old High German zeihhan, German zeichen, Gothic taikn "sign, token"), which is from from PIE root *deik- "to show," also "pronounce solemnly." Compare, from the same root, German zeigen "to show," Old English teon "to accuse,"The meaning "coin-like piece of stamped metal" is recorded from 1590s. The older sense of "evidence" is retained in by the same token (mid-15c.), originally "introducing a corroborating circumstance" [OED, 1989].
token (adj.)
"nominal," 1915, from token (n.). In integration sense, attested by 1960.
also from 1915
chick (n.)
"the young of the domestic hen," also of some other birds, mid-14c., probably originally a shortening of chicken (n.).Extended 14c. to human offspring, "person of tender years" (often in alliterative pairing chick and child) and thence used as a term of endearment. As modern slang for "young woman" it is recorded by 1927 (in "Elmer Gantry"), supposedly from African-American vernacular. In British use in this sense by c. 1940; popularized by Beatniks late 1950s (chicken in this sense is by 1860). Sometimes c. 1600-1900 chicken was taken as a plural, chick as a singular (compare child/children) for the domestic fowl.
also from mid-14c.
We do need more female representation here, don't we?
HSanders
Cracker bitch
wait...i got my position only due to d.e.i????
I didn't even know you were female for the longest time. Just figured you were some dude named Hank Sanders!
My two favorite subjects...
tit (n.2)
1540s, a word used for any small animal or object (as in compound forms such as titmouse, tomtit, etc.); also used of small horses. Similar words in related senses are found in Scandinavian (Icelandic tittr, Norwegian tita "a little bird"), but the connection and origin are obscure; perhaps, as OED suggests, the word is merely suggestive of something small. Used figuratively of persons after 1734, but earlier for "a girl or young woman" (1590s), often in deprecatory sense of "a hussy, minx."
also from 1540s
tit (n.1)
"breast," Old English titt "teat, nipple, breast" (a variant of teat). But the modern slang tits (plural), attested from 1928, seems to be a recent reinvention, used without awareness of the original form, from teat or from dialectal and nursery diminutive variant titties (pl.).tit (n.2)
1540s, a word used for any small animal or object (as in compound forms such as titmouse, tomtit, etc.); also used of small horses. Similar words in related senses are found in Scandinavian (Icelandic tittr, Norwegian tita "a little bird"), but the connection and origin are obscure; perhaps, as OED suggests, the word is merely suggestive of something small. Used figuratively of persons after 1734, but earlier for "a girl or young woman" (1590s), often in deprecatory sense of "a hussy, minx."
also from 1540s
Since my beloved Coach Belichick is being shut out of a job, and my beloved Patriots have resorted to a diversity hire Coach, I figured it would be a good time to dive into the history of the word coach.
The word coach started out as simply a noun, meaning a four-wheeled covered carriage. Of course, this same word/meaning exists today.
How did a carriage coach also come to mean a person who teaches? The migration of word meanings are always fascinating to linguistic nerds like myself and @HSanders . And they usually make sense in a convoluted way! Remember our conversation on slang words being the origin of so many of our words, @LordSensei1958 ? Well, here we go again.
Sometime in the 1830's, "coach" began to be used as slang at Oxford University for someone who tutored a student. Why? A tutor was someone who carried a student through an exam...like a four-wheeled coach! It stuck. Tutors were coaches. Sometime in the 1860's it transferred to athletic trainers or managers. They coached the athletes through their contests.
Naturally, the new noun coach also became a verb. We get annoyed by those too, LOL. A coach coaches.
A coach is a covered wagon.
A sports coach is slang. And the verb coach is a linguistic abomination
The word coach started out as simply a noun, meaning a four-wheeled covered carriage. Of course, this same word/meaning exists today.
How did a carriage coach also come to mean a person who teaches? The migration of word meanings are always fascinating to linguistic nerds like myself and @HSanders . And they usually make sense in a convoluted way! Remember our conversation on slang words being the origin of so many of our words, @LordSensei1958 ? Well, here we go again.
Sometime in the 1830's, "coach" began to be used as slang at Oxford University for someone who tutored a student. Why? A tutor was someone who carried a student through an exam...like a four-wheeled coach! It stuck. Tutors were coaches. Sometime in the 1860's it transferred to athletic trainers or managers. They coached the athletes through their contests.
Naturally, the new noun coach also became a verb. We get annoyed by those too, LOL. A coach coaches.
A coach is a covered wagon.
A sports coach is slang. And the verb coach is a linguistic abomination
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square (n.)
mid-13c., "mason's tool for measuring right angles, carpenter's square," from Old French esquire "a square, squareness," from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, a back-formation from *exquadrare "to square," from Latin ex "out" (see ex-) + quadrare "make square, set in order, complete," from quadrus "a square" (from PIE root *kwetwer- "four").The meaning "square shape or area" is recorded by late 14c. (Old English used feower-scyte). The geometric sense of "four-sided rectilinear figure" is from 1550s. The mathematical sense of "number or quantity derived from a number multiplied by itself" is also from 1550s.
As "square piece; any object in roughly square form" by c. 1600. As a body of troops, 1590s. As "old-fashioned person" by 1944 (see square adj.). As short for square meal, from 1882. Square one "the very beginning" (often what one must go back to) is from 1960, probably a figure from board games.
The sense of "quadrilateral open space in a town or park" is from 1680s; that of "area bounded by four streets in a city" is from c. 1700; in England this was often an individual building but in the U.S. commonly "a block of buildings bounded by four streets" (by 1867), which made it formerly noted as one of the words used differently in the two countries.
also from mid-13c.
square (adj.)
early 14c., "having four equal sides and right angles," from square (n.), or from Old French esquarre, past participle of esquarrer. The meaning "honest, fair, equitable, just" is attested by 1560s and accounts for many figurative sense; the notion seems to be "accurately adjusted, as by a square," hence "true, fitting, proper."
In measurements of square area, from late 14c. Of body parts, "sturdy, strongly built," late 14c. The meaning "straight, direct" is from 1804. Square meal, one that is solid and substantial, is by 1868; OED reports it "Orig. U.S.; common from about 1880." Of accounts, etc., "even, leaving no balance," by 1859.
The sense of "old-fashioned" is by 1944 in U.S. jazz slang, said to be from shape of a conductor's hand gestures in a regular four-beat rhythm. Square-toes meant nearly the same thing late 18c.: "precise, formal, old-fashioned person," from the style of men's shoes worn early 18c. and then fallen from fashion. Squaresville, the Limbo of the L-7, is attested from 1951.
Square dance (n.) is attested by 1831; originally one in which the couples faced inward from four sides; later of country dances generally. Square-dancing (n.) is by 1867, American English (Boston Evening Transcript).
Square-sail is attested by c. 1600. The nautical square-rigger is by 1829; square-rigged is from 1769. Square wheel as figurative of something that doesn't work as needed is by 1920.
also from early 14c.
square (v.)
late 14c., squaren, of stones, "make square in shape," from Old French esquarrer, variant of escarrer "to cut square," from Vulgar Latin *exquadrare "to square," from Latin ex "out" (see ex-) + quadrare "make square; set in order, complete," from quadrus "a square" (from PIE root *kwetwer- "four"). Also probably from or influenced by the noun.
The meaning "regulate according to any given standard" is from 1530s; the sense of "accord with" is from 1590s. With reference to accounts, "balance, make even," by 1815. In 15c.-17c. the verb also could mean "deviate, vary, digress, fall out of order." Related: Squared; squaring.
also from late 14c.
square (adv.)
1570s, "fairly, honestly," from square (adj.). The notion seems to be of rule, regularity, exact proportion, hence integrity of conduct, honest dealing. It is attested from 1630s as "directly, in line." The sense of "completely" is American-English, colloquial, by 1862.
also from 1570s
Entries linking to square
four-square (adj.)also foursquare, c. 1300, "having four equal sides," from four + square (adj.). As an adverb, in figurative use, "forthrightly, honestly" from 1845.
rectangle (n.)
in geometry, "quadrilateral plane figure having all its angles right and all its opposite sides equal," 1570s, from French rectangle (16c.), from rect-, combining form of Latin rectus "right" (from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line," with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line") + Old French angle (see angle (n.)).
An old name for it was long square (1650s). Late/Medieval Latin rectiangulum meant "a triangle having a right angle," noun use of neuter of rectiangulus "having a right angle." When the adjacent sides are equal, it is a square, but rectangle usually is limited to figures where adjacent sides are unequal.
In honor of Britney Mahomes and Taylor Swift:
bitch (n.)
Old English bicce "female dog," probably from Old Norse bikkjuna "female of the dog" (also of the fox, wolf, and occasionally other beasts), which is of unknown origin. Grimm derives the Old Norse word from Lapp pittja, but OED notes that "the converse is equally possible." As a term of contempt applied to women, it dates from c. 1400; of a man, c. 1500, playfully, in the sense of "dog." Used among male homosexuals from 1930s. In modern (1990s, originally African-American vernacular) slang, its use with reference to a man is sexually contemptuous, from the "woman" insult.Bitch goddess coined 1906 by William James; the original one was success.
bitch (v.)
"to complain," attested from at least 1930, perhaps from the sense in bitchy, perhaps influenced by the verb meaning "to bungle, spoil," which is recorded from 1823. But bitched in this sense seems to echo Middle English bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (as in Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch (n.).
also from 1930
Entries linking to bitch
bitchy (adj.)1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs thought to look less rough or coarse than usual.
Related: Bitchily; bitchiness.
Just to once again make the point that words change or add meanings over time.
shit (v.)
Old English scitan, from Proto-Germanic *skit- (source also of North Frisian skitj, Dutch schijten, German scheissen), from PIE root *skei- "to cut, split." The notion is of "separation" from the body (compare Latin excrementum, from excernere "to separate," Old English scearn "dung, muck," from scieran "to cut, shear;" see sharn). It is thus a cousin to science and conscience."Shit" is not an acronym. Nor is it a recent word. But it was taboo from c. 1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare nor the KJV has it), and even in the "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in Atlantic Monthly) and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). [Rawson]
It has extensive slang usage; the meaning "to lie, to tease" is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Also see shite. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18c.
To shit bricks "be very frightened" attested by 1961. The connection between fear and involuntary defecation has generated expressions in English since 14c. (the image also is in Latin), and probably also is behind scared shitless (1936).
shit (n.)
Middle English shit "diarrhea," from Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). The general sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun for natural discharges of the bodies of men or beasts seems to have been turd or filth). As an exclamation attested in print by 1920 but certainly older. Use for "obnoxious person" is by 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937.
Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Shit-hole is by 1937 as "rectum," by 1969 in reference to undesirable locations. Shitload (also shit-load) for "a great many" is by 1970. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.
Up shit creek "in trouble" is by 1868 in a South Carolina context (compare the metaphoric salt river, of which it perhaps a coarse variant). Slang not give a shit "not care" is by 1922. Pessimistic expression same shit different day is attested by 1989. To get (one's) shit together "manage ones affairs" is by 1969. Emphatic shit out of luck is by 1942.
The expression when the shit hits the fan "alluding to a moment of crisis or its disastrous consequences" [OED] is attested by 1967.
football (n.)
open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.
Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.
Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
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