The Unexpected Evolution of Language (9 page)

Humorism—the name for the “science” of humors—eventually
gave way to modern medicine, but it took a while. Vestiges remained into the eighteenth century, when “bleeding” someone was a common way to treat a sick patient. The belief remained that too many fluids could build up in the body, and doctors could bleed out the bad fluids. Though humors stopped taking any part in medical diagnoses, the concept of “complexion” as one’s facial appearance or color remained.

computer

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
one who calculates

NEW DEFINITION:
programmable electronic device

Sure, someone who performs calculations or computations
by hand could still be called a “computer,” but for most of the twentieth century and beyond, a “computer” refers to an electronic device that seems to have frighteningly little need of
puny humans.

The word “computer” has existed since the mid-1600s. For the first 250 years of its existence, a “computer” was a person who calculated sums by hand. He or she would be not unlike a modern-day accountant.

“Computer” first began to refer more to machines than to human beings just before the turn of the twentieth century. In 1886, for example, William Seward Burroughs (grandfather of the Beat Generation writer of the same name) began to mass produce the adding machine he invented. Some folks called it a “computer” because … well, that’s what it did. It computed sums.

The first “modern” computer was ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, developed in 1946. It officially associated machines and computers. ENIAC took up an entire floor of a building.

When microprocessors appeared in the 1970s, home computers began to emerge. By that time, computers—like science-
fiction cyborgs—had completed their transformation from human to machine.

confused

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
defeated; beaten (as in battle)

NEW DEFINITION:
chaotic; muddled

Appropriately enough, “confused” has a confusing history. Originally, it was used interchangeably with “confound,” which once meant to mix or mingle a bunch of things together. A party would be “confounded” or “confused.” Stew would be “confused” and “confounded.”

Eventually, “confused” took on a military air. It was a word used if one side was routed in a battle. You can picture men, horses, servants, all running around in disarray. Thus, the seed for connecting “confused” with “chaos” and “muddle” was forged.

But before that became common parlance, “confused” was more akin to “embarrass.” If a group of knights or soldiers has to retreat, then the combatants who survived probably were embarrassed. Ultimately, this meaning remains, but it’s not as common as “chaotic.” Geoffrey Chaucer seems to have used “confused” in a way similar to how it’s used today, which may ultimately have helped the word gain its present, most prominent meaning.

Finally, “confused” is confused because it existed as an adjective before it gave rise to the verb “confuse,” which didn’t become a common word until the mid-sixteenth century. Usually, the verb comes first, followed by an adjective formed from it.

cope

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to fight with; strike (as a blow)

NEW DEFINITION:
to deal effectively with a difficult situation

Talk about a 180. From roughly the 1300s to the 1600s, “cope” was a belligerent verb that suggested striking or fighting an enemy. You might “cope” somebody on a field of battle, or “cope” them because they were messing around with your wife.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the word evolved to mean “handle a situation.” One likely reason for the change is that this type of “cope” was influenced by another, less-well-known meaning of “cope”: an ecclesiastical garment. It’s the kind that completely covers someone. Poets have borrowed this meaning to describe the “cope of night” or the “cope of someone’s heart.” Thus, a “cope” covers up something. Some might say that is one way to handle a difficult situation.

Another way to handle a difficult situation is to confront it head-on, to fight with it or to strike it, metaphorically speaking. If you beat the crap out of someone, then you’ve dealt with the situation (just not in the most effective way). Thus, “cope” may have changed meaning because fisticuffs and drastic actions were (and are) used often to deal with tough times and difficult people.

courage

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
feelings; temper

NEW DEFINITION:
bravery

The Cowardly Lion wanted courage so much that he braved a difficult trip to the Emerald City in order to find it. Once there, however, he discovered he had possessed courage all along. He acted, despite his fear, which is the very definition of “courage.”

But it wasn’t always.

Initially, “courage” was a more generic word. It summed up all manner of one’s innermost feelings. The word was like a synonym for “mood.” Thus, your “courage” could be bravery, but it also could be fear, anger, lust, greed, pride, or any other of the seven deadly sins.

Somewhere along the way, “courage” came to refer principally to “bravery.” Most likely, that’s because the root word of “courage” is the Latin word for “heart.” The expression “take heart,” meaning “find courage in the midst of a difficult situation,” has existed for centuries.

Quotable Courage

• “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
  –Martin Luther King Jr.
  
• “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” –Walt Disney
  
• “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” –Winston Churchill
  
• “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” –C.S. Lewis
  
• “Courage is being scared to death … and saddling up anyway.”
  –John Wayne
  
• “Whatta they got that I ain’t got? Courage.” –The Cowardly Lion (as played by Bert Lahr in
  The Wizard of Oz
  )
  

crass

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
solid; thick

NEW DEFINITION:
crude

You probably know someone who’s a little dense. She doesn’t seem to realize when she’s overstepped the bounds of polite society. She makes crude remarks in mixed company. Her colleagues might call her (among other things) “thickheaded.”

The metaphorical “thickness” of someone’s head is how the word “crass” switched meaning from “solid” or “dense” to “crude” or “coarse.”

During the 1500s, you might make a “crass” stew or even live in a “crass” building. The word simply suggested sturdiness. By the 1650s, “crass” began to refer almost exclusively to people who should not be allowed to mingle in mixed company because they were thickheaded, rude, or crude.

The word also got tainted by snobbery. The “cradle-rich” disdain parvenus, those who came into “new money” in what the rich think is “the wrong way.” The truly rich—sniff, sniff—don’t need to
display
their wealth. Thus, the always-wealthy described self-made people as crass.

craze

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to break; shatter (verb)

NEW DEFINITION:
fad (noun); to derange (verb)

Before the sixteenth century, something that was “crazed” was completely shattered or ground into tiny shards. Another meaning for “craze” (which actually remains today, though it’s obscure) was “to cause cracks in.” For example, in pottery, you may intentionally “craze” your creation for aesthetic reasons.

By the sixteenth century, “craze” lost its original meaning and was used mostly to describe a breakdown in physical health. This first metaphorical shift makes sense because, when your health is gone, you’re pretty much shattered.

Not long after “craze” defined physical weakening, it was used to describe mental breakdowns as well. Thus, “craze” began to mean “derange” or “make crazy.”

“Craze” underwent one more shift in the nineteenth century when it began to be used as a word for “fad” as in, “It’s the dance craze that’s sweeping the nation!” A fad is a form of temporary mania, and “craze” is a synonym for “mania”; thus, the connection is made.

crisscross

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
Christ’s cross

NEW DEFINITION:
pattern of crossed lines

Beginning in the fifteenth century, generations of children learned the alphabet using something called a hornbook. The letters in hornbooks were carved on wood or stone, which was then covered with a thin veneer of mica (a type of common rock) or animal horn (hence the name) for protection.

The top line of the alphabet page in a hornbook typically began with a large cross, followed by various letters. The cross was a symbol of luck. To begin lessons, teachers would say something like, “Please start at the Christ’s cross row.” Then, students would trace their fingers back and forth over the lines and learn the alphabet, spelling, or new vocabulary.

Over time, “Christ’s cross row” became the contraction “crisscross row” and ultimately just “crisscross.” The act of reading, which causes one’s eyes to move in a, well, crisscross manner, led to the word developing its present meaning. Nowadays, most don’t have a clue that there’s a religious origin to “crisscross.”

culture

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
the tilling of land

NEW DEFINITION:
arts and customs that particularize a group, society, nation, etc.

Centuries ago, the word “culture” referred specifically to tilling land; it was related to the word “cultivate” (which, incidentally, also has transformed metaphorically to mean more than just growing plants and flowers).

Metaphor also explains the transformation of the most common contemporary meaning of “culture.” At first, around 1500, the word was used to describe the result of a good education. Matriculation into a school led to a “culture” of the mind.

Centuries later, the word transformed to something akin to “high culture,” the sort of stuff you might learn in school: poetry, symphonies, operas, etc. The rise of so-called “low culture” (comic books, tabloids, B-movies, etc.) helped make “culture” what it is today: the good, the bad, and the ugly of any given society, office, nation, or group.

Nowadays, you read about “corporate culture,” that collection of potential land mines that you can trip when you get a new job. Or, you study the culture of the Far East. Or you talk about how so many young people today eschew culture altogether.

Low Culture TKOs High Culture