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The VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙
@DrakkenZero@retro.pizza  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

Do we have any #linguistics experts here on Mastodon? I have a dumb question.

There are a lot of words that are antonyms, but I wonder how many of them have a singular point of origin.

For instance, Michael Jackson's "Bad" sort of popularized the concept of "bad" being "good" or "cool", but I don't think he was the point of origin, he was just a super spreader.

I'm looking for ones that have a SINGLE POINT OF ORIGIN. Like a linguistic mitochondrial eve, a single moment where a word's use flipped on it's head.

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Erkhyan
@erkhyan@yiff.life replied  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

@DrakkenZero Bugs Bunny referred to Elmer Fudd as “Nimrod” sarcastically, since Nimrod was a legendary hunter.

Because of this, once the name’s original meaning faded away, people were left with the idea that “Nimrod” means an idiot.

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