Language Changes over Three Centuries

[Red Badger]

Language Changes over Three Centuries

   The English language has always borrowed heavily on other cultures language.  English has gone through many changes since we landed on Plymouth Rock.  The words and phrases we use today are different from those used by our forefathers, in the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s, a situation that has constitutional scholars in fits, Historians and Re-enactors, scratching their heads trying to figure out what the meaning of various words or phrases actually were..

   When the white settlers first came over from Europe to "the New World" they were met by the areas current inhabitants, some of whom had civilizations at least as old as that of the Europeans.  The Native Americans had languages which were adapted to the area they inhabited.   The English Settlers insisted on using their puritanical speech and used their own expressions such as "Thou hast a devilment" which would change in the 1800s to "They have a pox".  In the 1900s this statement would become "they are ill", and finally to today's bastardized English "they're Sick"

In the search for linguistic enlightenment there are some bizarre changes to the meanings of words in just three hundred years; in the early 1700s the word apartment meant a single space of approximately eight feet long by eight feet wide by six feet high usually rented by the day or week.  After 1800 we would have gotten a room, usually with a closet and wash stand.  In the 20th century we received a suite of at least four rooms; a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.

For me to be caught in colonial Boston wearing my "birthday suit" in the year of our lord 1700 would not have gotten me a trip to the stocks but instead would probably have gotten me a small number of long looks from the maidens for my fancy clothing... Whereas in the 1800s a trip to the local watering trough for a dunking because my union suit was dirty would not be out of order, and finally in today's society, in the immortal words of Mr. Ray Stevens  someone would have shouted "Don't Look Ethel!".   

   In the first century of our living on this continent the word militia was used to identify every able bodied male in a village between the ages of fifteen and sixty, whose family owned the land they lived on.  By the mid 1800s the militia was every able bodied male in the county, free or slave, who could be trusted by the county Sheriff with a firearm... There are reports of children and women serving in militias during Indian uprisings.  In the 1900s the term militia became associated with paramilitary organizations most of which were not government sanctioned.

   Phrases come and go in the English language as they are developed, used and then phased out because technology makes them obsolete. When women first were allowed an education and started to become literate soon there was the first university professor of the female persuasion, She was not accorded the title Professor but rather some ingenious wordsmith coined the term Professoress, now of course we have gone gender blind and every one is a Professor.   Another word whose meanings have changed over the centuries is "Nice "originally it meant fastidious or "over scrupulous".  Then in the eighteen hundreds nice became "finicky", and now means "kind".

A gentleman of the 1700s would have hired an undertaker to build his new home, as general contractors were referred to at that time as construction under takers, and the term was not used to refer to morticians until the mid 1800s.  Speaking of gentlemen, the gentleman of the 1700s was of the landed gentry, in other words, a freeman who owned property.  In the eighteen hundreds the term was pressed into use by those professional persons of distinguishment who wanted a better class for themselves and envied the gentry.  Of course by the 1900s the term was so watered down that all males of honorable character were considered gentlemen, and young males were taught to behave as such. 

Luckily for those of us who do historical reenacting some things do not change, or at least they do not change much... "No new is good news "dates back to before the continent was settled. "F.O.B." still means Free On Board, to the shipping industry, and to the consumer it still means the shipper assumes no liability... the same as it did back in the 1500s, "A bird in the hand" still means the same as it did when Shakespeare was alive although the homing pigeon it refers to is long gone    "A flash in the pan" means the same thing now as it did 300 years ago, referring to the flash one might see in the priming pan of a flintlock, although for a brief period it held status as a colloquialism, meaning something that occurred very quickly, alas it may not be around much longer because the flintlock ignition system is no longer in as widespread use as it once was...

Words and their meanings are changing, always have, always will, but the increase in technological change is making the changes appear faster.  Thirty years ago we started talking about the personal computer, then we shortened it to the PC, now you talk about a PC and you are asked if you mean politically correct, or an overgrown tablet.  Who knows what it will mean in another one hundred years.

English has gone through many changes since we landed on Plymouth Rock.  The words and phrases we use today mean different things than they did to our forefathers, in the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s, and I am afraid that our Pilgrim friends would not understand us any better than they understood the first Native American to meet them.

[hotfxr]

I like it. As good or better than any article I have read in any publication. 

[DandJofAZ]

Here I am reading posts from 8 yrs ago.  Must be hard up for new posts...... Still as good today as when first posted....
Doug

[Hanshi]

Some of us are indeed hungry for new posts and subjects to explore.  In fact I think I hear the TMC site screaming "FEED ME".

[beowulf]

makes you wonder what ," yo ! what up homie ?" will mean in 300 years !  , heck language changes rather quickly ,there are things I would have said when I was in my teens that would have kids today wondering what I`m talking about !

[Hanshi]

Sure thing, beowulf.  Things like "the bees knees", 22(?) skidoo", "the cat's pajamas", "flapper", "sock hop", letter ending "your humble servant" and on and on.  Some things do come around again. 

[Hanshi]

Here I am reading posts from 8 yrs ago.  Must be hard up for new posts. [/b]
Doug

Shoes and clothes.  A term that's modern and one I've heard a few times is "threads and skids".
Dang straight, Doug.  I hate the silence we're lost in.

[Red Badger]

unfortunately because I posted that here for you all to read before I submitted it to the professor, I was nailed with a plagiarism charge because I did not state that it had been " academically published before"  GO FIGURE you guys are an academic body?  It must be all the good reference material we have on the muzzleloading era...  I did end up convincing the professor that Redbadger and I are the (almost) same person.... :) 

[Hanshi]

unfortunately because I posted that here for you all to read before I submitted it to the professor, I was nailed with a plagiarism charge because I did not state that it had been " academically published before"  GO FIGURE you guys are an academic body?  It must be all the good reference material we have on the muzzleloading era... I did end up convincing the professor that Redbadger and I are the (almost) same person.... :)

Just who are you now?

I actually published it back in 1923!

[Red Badger]

Careful... remember we don't delete posts around here!