English – The Confusing Language that Makes No Sense

You may be surprised to learn the true meaning or origins of many words in the English Language.

Such as…

Girl = young child (any sex)

Awful = inspiring

Bully = sweet-heart

Nice = stupid or ignorant

just to name a few

Awful = Full of Awe, Inspiring

Why this word has changed through time, makes me scratch my head. Awful makes sense to mean, full of awe.

Bimbo = Little Child, Fellow, One of the Boys

From Bambino in Italian

Bully = Darling, Sweet heart, Brother, lover

from the Dutch word “boel”, meaning lover or brother.

Cute = Keenly Perceptive, Shred

Cute was a shortened form of acute – in the 1730s.

Gay = Full of Joy, Merry, Carefree

• (late 12c. as a surname, Philippus de Gay), from Old French gai “joyful, happy; pleasant, agreeably charming; forward, pert”
• (12c.; cf. Old Spanish gayo, Portuguese gaio, Italian gajo, probably French loan-words).
• Ultimate origin disputed; perhaps from Frankish *gahi (cf. Old High German wahi “pretty”), though not all etymologists accept this.
• Meaning “stately and beautiful; splendid and showily dressed” is from early 14c.
• late 14c., “full of joy, merry; light-hearted, carefree;” also “wanton, lewd, lascivious”
• The word gay by the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity — a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back at least to the 1630s, if not to Chaucer:
• Slang meaning “homosexual” (adj.) begins to appear in psychological writing late 1940s,

Reference

Nice = stupid, foolish, ignorant, unwise, and not knowing

• late 13c., “foolish, stupid, senseless,”
• from Old French nice (12c.) “careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,”
• from Latin nescius “ignorant, unaware,” literally “not-knowing,” from ne- “not” (see un-) + stem of scire “to know”
• “The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj.”
• [Weekley] — from “timid” (pre-1300);
• to “fussy, fastidious” (late 14c.);
• to “dainty, delicate” (c.1400);
• to “precise, careful” (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early);
• to “agreeable, delightful” (1769);
• to “kind, thoughtful” (1830).

Reference

Bad = “effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast,” or womanish man

from Old English derogatory term bæddel and its diminutive bædling

Reference

Husband = House owner

• from hus “house” (see house (n.)) + bondi “householder, dweller, freeholder, peasant,”
• Old English husbonda “male head of a household,”
• probably from Old Norse husbondi “master of the house,”
• from buandi, present participle of bua “to dwell” (see bower).
• Beginning late 13c., replaced Old English wer as “married man,” companion of wif, a sad loss for English poetry.
• Slang shortening hubby first attested 1680s.

Almost = Mostly All

Care = be Anxious, Grieve, Feel Concern

• Old English carian, cearian “be anxious, grieve; to feel concern or interest,”

Careful = Full of Anxiety or Anxious, Mournful, Sad

• Old English cearful “mournful, sad,” also “full of care or woe; anxious; full of concern” (for someone or something), thus “applying attention, painstaking, circumspect;” from care (n.) + -ful.

Careless = Free from Anxiety, Unconcerned

• Old English carleas “free from anxiety; unconcerned,” from care (n.) + -less;

Girl = child, young person of either sex

• c.1300, gyrle “child” (of either sex), current scholarship [OED says] leans toward an unrecorded Old English *gyrele,
• from Proto-Germanic *gurwilon-,
• diminutive of *gurwjoz (apparently also represented by Low German gære “boy, girl,” Norwegian dialectal gorre, Swedish dialectal gurre “small child,” though the exact relationship, if any, between all these is obscure),
• from PIE *ghwrgh-,

Reference

Fun = to befool, fond

• (c.1400; see fond).
• of uncertain origin, probably a variant of Middle English fonnen “befool”
• from verb fun (1680s) “to cheat, hoax,”
• earlier “a cheat, trick” (c.1700),
• “diversion, amusement,” 1727,

Reference

Fond = to be foolish, a fool, silly

• mid-14c., originally “foolish, silly,”
• from past tense of fonnen “to fool, be foolish,”
• perhaps from Middle English fonne “fool” (early 14c.),
• of uncertain origin; or possibly related to fun

Reference

Sad= satisfied, full, have enough

• Old English sæd “sated, full, having had one’s fill (of food, drink, fighting, etc.),weary of,”
• from Proto-Germanic *sathaz (cf. Old Norse saðr, Middle Dutch sat, Dutch zad, Old High German sat, German satt, Gothic saþs “satiated, sated, full”),
• from PIE *seto- (cf. Latin satis “enough, sufficient,”
• Greek hadros “thick, bulky,”
• Old Church Slavonic sytu, Lithuanian sotus “satiated,”
• Old Irish saith “satiety,” sathach “sated”),
• from root *sa- “to satisfy” (cf. Sanskrit a-sinvan “insatiable”).

Reference

Notice:The Academy of Erudition, acknowledges that the English Language makes no sense, however, if you live in a land that speaks English you must study it in order to interact and communicate with.  Knowing the true meaning of words will help you do this intelligently.

Reference:

http://www.yaffabey.com/englishisacurse.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/05/31/735843/-The-Mad-Logophile-Words-That-Have-Changed-Their-Meaning-Part-1#