THE WORLD OF WORDS

Words have a curious life of their own. Some of them rise in reputation, some are pushed into oblivion while others experience an irreversible downfall; gravitational force seems to be at work in their world too!!! The fate of words is just as unpredictable as that of human beings. No sensible person would attempt detailing the story of all words in an article. Assuming that I belong to the world of those sensible people I’m here going to tell you the life history of a few words that I have selected in an arbitrary manner.
Most often words acquire a derogatory meaning in the course of time, which is a sad commentary on the human psyche. These words have fallen into disrepute, thanks to the vagaries of the human mind.
The word villain, for instance, had an inoffensive meaning in the initial stages of its existence. In the early days of manorial system the word merely denoted a labourer. Two hundred years later it came to be associated with the gross manners of a lowly labourer and later on came to mean a perpetrator of evil because it was thought that a person in the lower rung of the social ladder lacked probity! Words that have suffered a similar fate are churl (from the root ceorl meaning countryman) and boor (from the Dutch word boer meaning peasant)
To a person living in 1400 AD stink and lust carried no pejorative meaning; they only meant smell and desire. Similarly the word doom meant judgment to the Britishers of the 14th century. This sense of the word is retained in the verb deem derived from the above-mentioned word. Would you believe that lewd originally meant "unlearned" or "ignorant" and that silly meant happy and then happened to have a changeover in meaning? While patriotism has a positive meaning its actual equivalent term nationalism has been attributed negative connotations for no good reason.
Words also have had the problem of mistaken identity. The word demean meant to conduct but due to the mistaken idea that it was connected with the adjective mean it happened to acquire the present meaning; and pester has come to have the present meaning through an etymological stumble making it seem to have come from pest. The word pester, before the twist in its meaning took place, meant to entangle.
Some people have been immortalized in the world of words but not very much to their liking. News of the kind of existence they have in the realm of words would make them squirm in their graves. The word dunce comes from the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus, whose adversaries were of the opinion that his work was insipid; gradually the word came to mean a wooden headed person, in other words, a fathead: boycott originates from Captain Boycott who was agent for the Irish estates of a certain English peer about the year 1880. He was notorious for his harsh treatment of the tenants; the Irish tenants planned to have him removed through a planned strike against him. This mode of treatment came to be known as boycott.
The word spoonerism has the most interesting history of all words. It comes from Spooner who is known for his speech defect of misplacing the first letters of words. When Spooner addressed a gathering of farmers he called them "tons of soil" and to a student who missed his history classes he said in an angry tone, " you hissed my mistory classes". It is said that in a conversation he called the well-known two-wheeled vehicle a "well boiled icicle" and a friend’s cottage as a "nosy little cook". He is also said to have talked about "tearful chidings". Spoonerism later came to be a generic term for such a speech defect. The Count de Sade is responsible for the existence of the word sadism; the sense of opprobrium that his name suggested due to his misdeeds continues to live on in this word.
And then there was a distinguished Roman general called Lucullus who was well known for his love of lavishness and opulence rather than anything else. Once when his servant had cooked unexceptional food because there was no guest the angry Lucullus said "dost thou not know that today Lucullus dines with Lucullus?" Hence lavishness has come to be equated with this Roman general in the word Lucullan.
Finally there is Eros, the Greek god of love (fortunately his name has not been associated with any negative overtones) who is however not as popular as the Roman god of love, Cupid. Words such as erotic come from this god of love. One interesting thing about Eros is that if you rearrange the letters you will get the word rose. Is that why lovers exchange roses? Probably yes.
So far we have seen how, in the case of many words, we human beings have contributed our mite to make the lives of words miserable. The situation can be reversed sometimes. For instance, if you look at a person’s face and say that his/ her face is appalling instead of using the word appealing (deliberately or accidentally, whichever is the case) imagine what your plight would be; what else? You will end up with black eye!