Without a possibility of change in meanings human communication could not perform its present functions.
The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.
The term 'niche' is no longer pejorative.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.
One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
New technology creates a new marketplace of words, creating totally new words and changing the meaning and application of existing ones. In doing so, it has a potent opportunity to create new misconceptions and confusion.
We now use the word 'nature' very much as our fathers used the word 'God.'
You know, words have strange destiny, too. They grow. They get old. They die. They come back.
To understand a word, we need to learn where it was born, what paths it took to reach where it is today, and how it has changed along the way. The word 'nice' is a positive word today, but hundreds of years ago, it meant 'stupid.'
Among the many evils which prevail under the sun, the abuse of words is not the least considerable. By the influence of time, and the perversion of fashion, the plainest and most unequivocal may be so altered, as to have a meaning assigned them almost diametrically opposite to their original signification.
The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor.
Language, after all, is organic. You can't force words into existence. You can't force new meanings into words. And some words can't or won't or shouldn't be laundered or neutered. Language develops naturally.
Language changes very fast.
I have a suggestion for a new name for the developing world. Let's call it the world.
An idea does not pass from one language to another without change.
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world
Words aren't made — they grow,' said Anne.
The extraordinary thing about new words is that probably only about one per cent of them are new. Most are old words revived and adapted.
The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.
Do you ever wonder what happens to the words that we send Do they bend, do they break from the flight that they take And come back together again with a whole new meaning In a brand new sense, completely unrelated to the one I sent ((Did You Get My Message?))
The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.
Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.
The label “liberalism” or “liberal” has been hijacked over the last century so that now it means something that's a 180 degree opposite of what it originally meant.
