whats a word thats altered from its original definition

[illumi]

this is basically an opinion breeding ground of set alterations but be respectful!

 

im mainly focusing on how the internet influenced the definition of that word [such as altering its definition by throwing it around lightheartedly] so share one that you know

heres mine and its not commonly talked about. its a long one so proceed with caution

 

Spoiler

the words original definition. directly quoted

Quote

headcanon is the set of theories based on that source material which no matter how much they seem to be the "obvious" or "only" interpretation of canonical fact are not actually part of the canon

headcanon used to mean a fan theory supported by the explicit information from its source material but its not canon no matter how obvious the implication from the canon is

 

this word has been thrown around so lightheartedly that hcs literally just means customizing the characters like you do to your own ocs without any elaborative interpretation directly from the source material. its all just oh this character looks like theyd be bi without any canonical elaboration so lets make a hc about them being bi!! kind of thing which erases the point of it being a theory as evidence is needed henceforth altering its definition

 

now! the words altered definition. directly quoted

Quote

headcanon generally refers to ideas held by fans of series that are not explicitly supported by sanctioned text or other media. fans maintain the ideas in their heads outside of the accepted canon

headcanon now pretty much means ones subjective interpretation of that character aka the personally idealized version from its canon counterpart. although this definition says that hcs can still be created directly based on its source material the evidence is only going to be implicit and not very obvious if not at all so its generally just a fun little ideas fans come up with that are in no need of further elaboration

now my personal opinion about this change is that i dont really care. as much as i like the old definition and i think everything fanmade should stay in character and make sense [except for alternate universes] its not my business to poke into. let people have fun is the moral of the story here

[Lichley]

I find the word awful quite interesting. It used to mean full of awe, something awe-inspiring, and now it means something bad. It has completely reversed its own meaning over time. Very few words have actually managed to do that.

[illumi]

7 minutes ago, Lichley said:

I find the word awful quite interesting. It used to mean full of awe, something awe-inspiring, and now it means something bad. It has completely reversed its own meaning over time. Very few words have actually managed to do that.

i didnt even know that it meant full of awe lmao ive always known it as a synonym to terrible

[Black Tourmaline]

"out of pocket" once meant:

"costs that individuals pay out of their own cash reserves. The phrase is most often used to describe an employee's business and work-related expenses that the company later reimburses. It also describes a policyholder's share of health insurance costs, including money spent on deductibles, copays, coinsurance, etc."

 

the modern meaning is completely unrelated and the phrase now means to act socially inappropriately.

[Ceebs]

32 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

"out of pocket" once meant:

"costs that individuals pay out of their own cash reserves.

 

32 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

the phrase now means to act socially inappropriately.

Really?! I've literally never heard it used to mean the latter, only the former -- and that's definitely how it's used currently where I live.

[daveb]

What's a word that hasn't altered from its original definition? 

 

I'm being light-hearted, but seriously. The nature of language is change. Lots of words change over time. Language evolves (or becomes a dead language).  

[Aye]

2 minutes ago, daveb said:

What's a word that hasn't altered from its original definition? 

 

I'm being light-hearted, but seriously. The nature of language is change. Lots of words change over time. Language evolves (or becomes a dead language).  

potato

 

[daveb]

It was what is known as a rhetorical question.  

[illumi]

21 minutes ago, daveb said:

What's a word that hasn't altered from its original definition? 

 

I'm being light-hearted, but seriously. The nature of language is change. Lots of words change over time. Language evolves (or becomes a dead language).  

i know youre merely making a joke but i was not talking about historical change but specifically words that quickly changed its definition from internet influence. its not like every word has to be on topic but thats my gist

4 hours ago, sevan said:

im mainly focusing on how the internet influenced the definition of that word [such as altering its definition by throwing it around lightheartedly] so share one that you know

 

[daveb]

Fair enough.  

I can't think of any off-hand, but I am not good at keeping up on the latest slang or colloquialisms.  

[Lord Revan]

2 hours ago, Black Tourmaline said:

"out of pocket" once meant:

"costs that individuals pay out of their own cash reserves. The phrase is most often used to describe an employee's business and work-related expenses that the company later reimburses. It also describes a policyholder's share of health insurance costs, including money spent on deductibles, copays, coinsurance, etc."

 

the modern meaning is completely unrelated and the phrase now means to act socially inappropriately.

Wait it still doesn't mean that ?

[Lord Revan]

You. It used to mean a group of people you were talking to, so 2nd person plural and thou was used for single ppl. But it was also used as a 2nd person singular formal, to those with greater authority than you, like vous in French. Over time it became polite to call everyone you, and disrespectful to call people thou, so it came out of fashion. So you is now used for anyone you're speaking to. This all happened about 300 years after they started to be used in singular.

[Tetus]

4 hours ago, Black Tourmaline said:

"out of pocket" once meant:

"costs that individuals pay out of their own cash reserves. The phrase is most often used to describe an employee's business and work-related expenses that the company later reimburses. It also describes a policyholder's share of health insurance costs, including money spent on deductibles, copays, coinsurance, etc."

 

the modern meaning is completely unrelated and the phrase now means to act socially inappropriately.

I think this is a slightly different case: these are two different sayings using the same words. That is, one didn’t evolve into the other.

 

”Out of pocket” as a slang term has been used to refer to someone who is not under the control of the person or agency in question. You’ve probably heard it in some action/spy movies, where a bad actor is described as being out of pocket, meaning they’ve lost track of or control over them. This lends itself to the socially inappropriate behavior change.

 

Out of pocket costs aren’t related to this, and that term is still in wide use, especially with health insurance stuff in the US.

[SilenceRadio]

Personally, I don't really care that much, but I've seen some people complain about how "gaslighting", "emotional labour", "gatekeeping", "reclamation", "narcissism", etc. have been redefined in Web discussions.

[illumi]

26 minutes ago, SilenceRadio said:

Personally, I don't really care that much, but I've seen some people complain about how "gaslighting", "emotional labour", "gatekeeping", "reclamation", "narcissism", etc. have been redefined in Web discussions.

narcissism means self love in general now. if you say you love yourself thats narcissistic! says the internet

[awadama]

Literally used to mean literally but now it means the opposite of literally.

[Still]

The word "transport" isn't used very often in the "strong emotion" sense anymore  

[Ella of Frell]

8 hours ago, sevan said:

i didnt even know that it meant full of awe lmao ive always known it as a synonym to terrible

Similar to awful and related to terrible, terrific actually comes from the same root as terror and originally referred to something that inspired fear. 

[Siimo van der fietspad]

Ejaculate. In the nineteenth century, it meant to shout or exclaim - in fact, there are numerous ejaculations in the Sherlock Holmes stories, including from an upper story window(!)

[Scylactic]

"Gay." Used to just mean happy. Now it means someone with same-sex attraction.

[PaleMoth]

This is going back a way but naughty comes from middle English meaning to possess nothing. This apparently shifted from lack of possessions to lack of morals. In this sense it had a much stronger meaning than it does today more akin to evil than misbehaved. 

[Fraggle Underdark]

8 hours ago, sevan said:

i know youre merely making a joke but i was not talking about historical change but specifically words that quickly changed its definition from internet influence. its not like every word has to be on topic but thats my gist

 

Not that it really matters but the thread title would be more accurate if it mentioned change specifically from internet use or during internet era. I was seeing this thread in "New Threads" for a while before clicking on it and kept thinking "all of them"

 

I find the debate around headcanoning kind of interesting so I'll speak to that. I'd be curious if a definitive source could be found on what it used to mean, specifically if that usage was in fact universal, rather than just what some people meant with it.

 

I do a lot of headcanoning myself (though don't talk about it much because it's for my own enjoyment and satisfaction) and I think it's worth pointing out in these discussions that fictions are fictional. None of that actually happened anywhere, none of the characters are real, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they did. The only place they exist is in our minds. So we can sometimes say "this wasn't in the movie" or "the creator said the characters feel this". But ultimately this is all discussion of imaginary people who don't exist and never have. There's just no objective truth to any of it.

 

But the stories and characters do exist in our own imaginations. And I see zero reason to fundamentally care about what version of the character exists in the creator's mind or in the majority of people's minds. I want stories that resonate and provide enjoyment to me, since that's who I am, so it makes sense to just change things up so that I feel they're more realistic or engaging or relatable. (Especially since that's so hard for me to find, for systemic reasons.)

 

As for the actual definition change, I think there needs to be a word for "personal conceptualization of a publicly shared story" and I don't think that words needs to have any fundamental connection to how much - or whether - that personal conceptualization can be inferred from the official works of the creator. In those cases we can say "headcanoning that has a lot of support in the official/original work". Plus, whether there's support for a headcanoning in the original work is usually a controversial question itself, which means very few things could be agreed as headcanoning using the first definition you mention.

[Snao Cone]

Meme.

[illumi]

9 hours ago, Scylactic said:

"Gay." Used to just mean happy. Now it means someone with same-sex attraction.

the certified classic

[illumi]

12 hours ago, awadama said:

Literally used to mean literally but now it means the opposite of literally.

im literally gay!!!

[AspieAlly613]

"Snowflake"

 

I remember when the term "snowflake" was short for "special snowflake" and was a derogatory way of describing someone who insisted on being unique, or insisted that xe was unique despite being easy to categorize with other people.  Somewhere along the line, the definition transformed to mean "emotionally fragile".

[SorryNotSorry]

A model used to mean something that you bought in a kit form and put together using glue.

[illumi]

7 hours ago, AspieAlly613 said:

"Snowflake"

 

I remember when the term "snowflake" was short for "special snowflake" and was a derogatory way of describing someone who insisted on being unique, or insisted that xe was unique despite being easy to categorize with other people.  Somewhere along the line, the definition transformed to mean "emotionally fragile".

its weird because snowflake never gave me the implication of uniqueness but people just sort of forced it to be

[Tetus]

3 hours ago, sevan said:

its weird because snowflake never gave me the implication of uniqueness but people just sort of forced it to be

There’s the old saw about how every snowflake is unique. From my personal  recollection, the popularization of the derogatory term stemmed from its use by a character in Fight Club. In a stroke of whatever the opposite of irony is, the character in question is identified in the text as a literal anthropomorphic embodiment of toxic masculinity, so the adoption of the “snowflake” insult by the people who used it was… amusing.

[Ceebs]

On 8/14/2022 at 11:34 PM, SorryNotSorry said:

A model used to mean something that you bought in a kit form and put together using glue.

It still does.