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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Webster's updated "literally". It now includes the definition "to add emphasis", since people keep using it incorrectly. They update the dictionary to reflect current usage, so I get it, but it still makes me sad.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    If this sort of thing didn’t happen, you would just have claimed that seeing the dictionary entry makes you not hungry. (Original meaning of sad in Old English, cognate with German satt which still has this meaning.)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    There are probably some cases were words changed their meaning from positive to negative. (I know there are in German)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Contronyms are words that hold two opposite meanings

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  • I didn’t mean contronyms.

    One example of what I mean is the word knight. It used to mean boy or servant. The German word Knecht still means (farmers) servant.

    Another is ‘nice’, which used to mean ‘simple, foolish, ignorant’.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Mark my words, it's going to happen again with "objectively". I see stuff like this constantly:

    This art piece is objectively good

    That's not what's objectively means?

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