The Unexpected Evolution of Language (21 page)

penthouse

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
humble building with a sloped roof attached to a larger building

NEW DEFINITION:
swanky apartment on the top floor of a building

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus probably was born in a “penthouse.” Not a swanky urban penthouse, mind you, but a simple, humble dwelling with a sloped roof. After all, that’s the original definition for a penthouse.

The modern sense of “penthouse” began to appear in the 1920s, a time of great change and rapid expansion in American history. “Skyscrapers” were being built, and the apartments often placed at their pinnacles were called “penthouses.” After all, they were still “attached” to larger buildings.

According to the
New York Observer
, the average cost of a New York City apartment in 2010—not even a penthouse, mind you—was $1.43 million. For most, you’d need more money than God in order to let your children be born in a penthouse. Penthouses have come a long way from their humble beginnings… .

peruse

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to use up; wear out

NEW DEFINITION:
to read carefully

First, let’s clear up a misconception about this word. For some reason, many people today believe “peruse” means to skim or scan a passage quickly. In fact, it means the opposite, and for proof, you can look at the word’s original meaning.

During the fourteenth century, “peruse” referred to something one had paid so much attention to, or used so much, that it was now almost useless. For example, you used a feedbag so much that it developed numerous holes and was no longer useful on the farm. For that matter, a horse may have been “perused” because it had been worked to near death.

By the 1500s, “peruse” began to refer to reading something carefully, in effect, to “wear out” a text by reading it closely or repeatedly. The shift makes sense when one considers that the Gutenberg press first printed a book in 1456.

After that invention, more and more people owned Bibles (among other works), and many “perused” their Bibles carefully to make sure they were doing right … or, more likely, to prove that their neighbors were doing wrong. Things haven’t changed
that
much in 500 years.

photogenic

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
producing light

NEW DEFINITION:
looking good in photographs

Initially, the word “photogenic” was coined to describe what everyone now calls photography. “Photo” means “light,” and “genic” means “produces.” In biology class, you might learn about photogenic bacteria, which means they generate light. Likewise, early efforts at photographs were called “photogenic drawings.” They were pictures made, in a sense, out of light.

Well, the American version of English always has believed brevity is the soul of wit. Or maybe Americans are just lazy. Regardless, it didn’t take long before “photogenic drawings” begot “photographs” which begot “photos.”

“Photogenic” changed its principal meaning and began to describe someone who “takes good pictures” as Hollywood begot the nation’s first superstar feeding frenzy. If you think about it, you could say that these “stars” shine … just like a photogenic, light-generating bacterium. And since most stars look good in pictures, the word took on that meaning.

pineapple

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
a pinecone

NEW DEFINITION:
a tropical fruit

An “apple” was once a generic word for “fruit.” Considering that, the original definition of “pineapple” makes sense. Pine trees drop their “fruit” on the ground, and these “pineapples” grow new pine trees. Around 1700, some scientists began to call these spiny objects “pinecones” because of their shape.

There might have been another reason for this semantic shift. European exploration was going strong in the mid-seventeenth century. Explorers found a tropical fruit that resembled “pineapples”—i.e., pinecones—so explorers took to calling them “pineapples.”

As two different kinds of “pineapples” became common, confusion ensued. Thus, by the eighteenth century, pineapples were pineapples, and pinecones were pinecones.

Hawaiian Fruit?

Even though you probably associate pineapples with Hawaii, they are not native to the islands. Pineapples originate in South America, and some historians credit their European discovery to Christopher Columbus himself.

An explorer—it’s unclear which one—introduced the pineapple to Hawaii in the sixteenth century. In the 1880s, Captain John Kidwell became the first to cultivate the pineapple on a large scale, but his pineapple plantation soon was dwarfed by that of industrialist James Dole, whose name remains associated with pineapples to this day.

pioneer

ORIGINAL MEANING:
foot soldier

NEW DEFINITION:
one who leads the way; one who does something first

For centuries, a “pioneer” was a foot soldier. He was a grunt, nameless, expendable. He basically performed reconnaissance missions, striking out a little ahead of the rest of the army, making sure all was clear before going back to get everyone else. If he got blown up, chopped into pieces, or crushed by a booby trap, then that was too bad. At least no one “important” got hurt.

Eventually, people realized the bravery that it took to be a “pioneer.” After all, these guys (and they would have been guys) went into uncharted territory that was fraught with peril. Sure, they were ordered to go and would have been court-martialed if they didn’t, but pioneers exhibited valor nonetheless.

As the Age of Discovery (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries) took root, pioneers blossomed. These explorers, no longer anonymous, became famous, lending their European names to land masses and bodies of water inhabited by (newly expendable) indigenous people.

To this day, “pioneer” has something of a heroic ring to it.

poll

ORIGINAL MEANING:
head; hair

NEW MEANING:
survey

Polling has become the lifeblood of American politicians, and polls are as omnipresent as hair on one’s head. That makes sense, as it turns out.

During medieval times, “poll” was a noun that meant the “top of the head,” or “hair.” Thus one would get one’s “poll” cut.

At the dawn of the modern era, “poll” began to gain its political association. When a vote was taken, sometimes a “head count” was used. The “poll”—in its original sense—was the part that a public official could see and count in order to register votes. Thus, “polling” came to mean counting votes related to a particular issue or candidate.

The word made a slight shift in 1824, when a “straw poll” was used by a Pennsylvania newspaper to determine the likely winner of the presidential race between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. The poll, a survey of voters’ likely ballot choice, accurately predicted Jackson would win the election.

When George Gallup brought statistics to polling in 1936, he helped transform the most common modern concept of polling from counting votes to include gathering information about public opinions.

prestige

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
trick; illusion; deception

NEW DEFINITION:
the quality of being esteemed by others

“Prestige” used to mean “trick.” Yes, as in something a magician performs, but also as in “deception.” “Prestige” suggested that you intentionally misled someone. You dazzled him into believing your story and then took him for everything he was worth.

The sense of “dazzling” others led “prestige” to undergo a transformation. Some posit that the word first was used with a positive connotation to describe Napoleon, who not only was esteemed but was also quite tricky. He seems to have embodied both the old and new meanings of “prestige.”

By the close of the nineteenth century, “prestige” became the wholly positive word the English language knows today. If you dazzle someone with your prestige, then you haven’t tricked her. You’ve impressed her with your abilities. People tend to admire those who attend prestigious universities or get published in prestigious journals. A woman of prestige is one whom everyone admires for the content of her character.

pretty

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
cunning

NEW DEFINITION:
attractive

“Pretty” has had a rather byzantine life. Its meaning shifted substantially between Old English and Middle English, and for a good portion of its life, “pretty” was a word used to describe men, not women.

The Old English word that led to “pretty” meant “cunning” and “artful.” Someone who “pulled one over on you” was guilty of a “pretty” trick, for example. By the fifteenth century, however, “pretty” became synonymous with “manly” and “gallant.” Most likely, the Old English word and a similar word from another language got intermingled. This was a common occurrence in the early history of the English language.

Once “pretty” became “manly,” its meaning shifted again, to “attractive.” This must be when the word “switched genders” because then, as now, a lot of men don’t want to be complimented for their looks because they think it’s “unmanly.”

By the mid-fifteenth century, “pretty” took on its current meaning of “attractive” … but not really “beautiful.” Perhaps this ambivalence is what caused people in the sixteenth century to begin using “pretty” as a modifier, as in “pretty plow.” This version of “pretty” seems in keeping with something that’s not ugly, not beautiful, but in between.

promiscuous

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
consisting of a garbled-up mixture of people or things

NEW DEFINITION:
characterized by having many sexual partners

When Shakespeare was constructing his masterful tragedies, “promiscuous” was a completely nonsexual word that might have described a big mess. For example, the seventeenth-century version of a hoarder might have had a “promiscuous” collection of odds and ends filling up every nook and cranny of his hovel. Or a street fair would have collected a “promiscuous” group of men, women, and children.

Given that any indiscriminate mixture of people just begs for potential scandals, wagging tongues, and sideways glances, it’s not surprising that the word began to mean “someone who is indiscriminate in his or her sexual partners.” That definition didn’t become widespread until the turn of the twentieth century, though.

Q

quaint

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
cunning; artfully contrived; meticulous

NEW DEFINITION:
pleasingly old-fashioned

“Quaint” harks back to the same Latin word that gave the English language “cognizant.” It’s a short jump from cognizance to craftiness. If you’re cognizant, you’re aware of all the angles, and you can be cunning and crafty. Thus, around the thirteenth century, this was “quaint’s” meaning.

About 100 years later, “quaint” grew a new limb and came to mean “cleverly made” or “artfully contrived,” as in a “quaint lie.” The shift is reasonable. If you’re cunning, you’ll make up stories to get what you want.

By the fifteenth century, “quaint” meant meticulous or fastidious. The semantic shift here is a little more of a stretch, but most likely it comes from the sense of someone being very careful in covering his tracks after he’s told many “artfully contrived” stories. You can’t be too careful; someone might catch you in a lie.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, “quaint” put on a new, artfully contrived, definition. It basically picked up bits and pieces of its earlier meanings and fashioned a new denotation out of them: pleasingly old-fashioned.