a common boundary or intercommunication between systems, equipment, concepts, or human beings. (Dictionary.com)
-------------------------------------
I chose to follow the word interface because it is a good example of a fairly recently-created word that meant one thing when it was born, but has taken on a new meaning with continued use. There are a lot of these words in our language which we use all the time without thinking about it. Perhaps one of the best examples in common use is that of gay, an old-fashioned word which, as you already know, once meant something like happy, extremely positive, full of joy. But in the last couple of decades of the last century the word became synonymous with homosexual (particularly male homosexual.) Consequently, the word is used carefully in today's communications so as to not mislead the reader.
Similarly, interface is a word from the rapidly-emerging lexicon of the computer age which, when first applied, meant the place where two or more systems converge. It would have been proper to refer to the interface as that place. I can remember being corrected numerous times when I used the term as a verb, as in "The two scientists interfaced to discuss the research." That kind of thing drove linguists crazy.
In today's communication, the word interface is used just as commonly as a noun and a verb. The populace forced the acceptable use of the word. My suspicion is that those who are responsible for the updating of the American English lexicon finally said, "Oh, the heck with it. If they are going to use the word that way, let's just approve it." Maybe it wasn't quite that easy, but I'll bet it wasn't far off.
It makes me wonder what other current words will emerge with a different meaning in the years to come. I am grateful to Paul McFedries, who writes the blog Wordspy.com. His blog is dedicated to the exposure of new words being created as a result of recent activity. He talks about such words as peanut-buttering, which he says is the act of spreading something too thinly over the topic. And then there is de-Scottishify. It is a word meant to identify the activity taking place in our society to remove the reference to Scotland from any article. It comes about as a result of people being furious with Scotland for releasing the terrorist who was responsible for bombing the plane carrying Americans and others over Lockerbie, Scotland a number of years ago. These are two of Paul's more colorful, recent postings. I commend his blog to you.
Do you suppose there will be such new words as blogification, de-obamafy, or roverant? Or maybe popeanglican and palinoscopy. Who knows? But one thing is sure, if such words do come into existence, don't count on their meanings being constant; at any point they may change meanings, depending upon how we use them (or abuse them)
-------------------------------------
I chose to follow the word interface because it is a good example of a fairly recently-created word that meant one thing when it was born, but has taken on a new meaning with continued use. There are a lot of these words in our language which we use all the time without thinking about it. Perhaps one of the best examples in common use is that of gay, an old-fashioned word which, as you already know, once meant something like happy, extremely positive, full of joy. But in the last couple of decades of the last century the word became synonymous with homosexual (particularly male homosexual.) Consequently, the word is used carefully in today's communications so as to not mislead the reader.
Similarly, interface is a word from the rapidly-emerging lexicon of the computer age which, when first applied, meant the place where two or more systems converge. It would have been proper to refer to the interface as that place. I can remember being corrected numerous times when I used the term as a verb, as in "The two scientists interfaced to discuss the research." That kind of thing drove linguists crazy.
In today's communication, the word interface is used just as commonly as a noun and a verb. The populace forced the acceptable use of the word. My suspicion is that those who are responsible for the updating of the American English lexicon finally said, "Oh, the heck with it. If they are going to use the word that way, let's just approve it." Maybe it wasn't quite that easy, but I'll bet it wasn't far off.
It makes me wonder what other current words will emerge with a different meaning in the years to come. I am grateful to Paul McFedries, who writes the blog Wordspy.com. His blog is dedicated to the exposure of new words being created as a result of recent activity. He talks about such words as peanut-buttering, which he says is the act of spreading something too thinly over the topic. And then there is de-Scottishify. It is a word meant to identify the activity taking place in our society to remove the reference to Scotland from any article. It comes about as a result of people being furious with Scotland for releasing the terrorist who was responsible for bombing the plane carrying Americans and others over Lockerbie, Scotland a number of years ago. These are two of Paul's more colorful, recent postings. I commend his blog to you.
Do you suppose there will be such new words as blogification, de-obamafy, or roverant? Or maybe popeanglican and palinoscopy. Who knows? But one thing is sure, if such words do come into existence, don't count on their meanings being constant; at any point they may change meanings, depending upon how we use them (or abuse them)
No comments:
Post a Comment