On Fri, 4 Aug 2000, Beth Benoit went:
> So does that mean that usage - even incorrect usage - will
> ultimately change the original meaning of the word?
Well, yes. Are you implying that that's somehow not nice? By the
way, the correct meaning of the word _nice_ is as follows. :)
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?db=*&term=nice
nice
adj. nic.er, nic.est.
[Middle English foolish, from Old French from Latin nescius, ignorant,
from nescere, to be ignorant; see nescience.]
9. Obsolete.
Wanton; profligate: "For when mine hours/Were nice and
lucky, men did ransom lives/Of me for jests" (Shakespeare).
It took a lot of incorrect usage to get us from a 6000-year-old
proto-Indo-European language to each of our local acrolects.*
*http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=acrolect
acrolect
Date: 1964
the language variety of a speech community closest to the standard
or prestige form of a language
smileys (this post is meant to be humorous, not flamey),
David Epstein
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
