ENGL 2105 Lecture Notes - Nicotine, Geoffrey Chaucer, Semantic Change
26 Feb 2014
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Some people switch to formal/technical terms (deceased, etc. ) Some taboo words become acceptable so more extreme swearing develops. Ex of diff ways we can use shit . Words that could not be said before now can (media) Different forms of world eng, euphemisms and taboos are different. Idiom=multiword lexeme where cannot discern from its part. Phrases like pushing up daisies (euphemism) are often more literal. Affixation, if a word appears like it has affixes, peel away affix to find root word that was never really there. Unfamiliar word or loan word, speaker unsure what to do with it. Eng speakers decided this organism would be a crayfish because seemed like had a root. No one understands olde guma part of brydguma. Mide did understand the word groom though, as in servant that works in stable. People would imitate her by wearing necklaces of lace instead of gold. No way to break this down which is why now an amalgamated compound.
