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Yarn and Clues (The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, #5)

0/5 ( ratings)

Did you know that "girl" used to mean "a child of either sex" or that "nice" used to mean "silly, foolish"? While some words are remarkably stable, many undergo semantic shifts. This lecture surveys the five major categories of semantic change: generalization, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension.

It's a human impulse to play with language and to create new words and meanings - but also to worry about the decay of language. But by studying how and why language changes and the story behind the everyday words in our lexicon, we can learn a lot about ourselves - how our minds work and how our culture has changed over the centuries.

Language: English

Format: Audiobook

Release: January 01, 2012

Yarn and Clues (The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, #5)

0/5 ( ratings)

Did you know that "girl" used to mean "a child of either sex" or that "nice" used to mean "silly, foolish"? While some words are remarkably stable, many undergo semantic shifts. This lecture surveys the five major categories of semantic change: generalization, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension.

It's a human impulse to play with language and to create new words and meanings - but also to worry about the decay of language. But by studying how and why language changes and the story behind the everyday words in our lexicon, we can learn a lot about ourselves - how our minds work and how our culture has changed over the centuries.

Language: English

Format: Audiobook

Release: January 01, 2012

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