- From: Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org>
- Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:56:31 -0500
- To: semantic-web@w3.org
Lars Marius Garshol wrote: > > > * Peter F. Patel-Schneider >> >> Perhaps a better analogy would be between current speakers of English and >> speakers of English about 100 years ago. Certain English sentences had >> meaning 100 years ago and still retain that meaning, but have a stronger >> meaning now. (Does anyone have any really good examples of such >> sentences, >> by the way?) > > A quite startling example is the phrase "make love to". When I first > encountered it in Jane Austen I did a triple-take, before realizing that > 200 years ago it must have meant "to court", and not what it means > today. Not sure whether this counts as a good example in all parts of > the globe. Similar examples are uses of the words "ejaculate" and "erection". For example, in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Red Headed League", Dr. Watson at one point says ' "What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated' (meaning "I exclaimed"). "Ejaculate" tends to have a more specific meaning these days. Similarly, I vaguely remember an example of a sentence from a girl's diary from the 19th century describing (as I recall) her attempt to build a rather elaborate hat, and her bemoaning the fact that "the whole erection collapsed". These days if you saw that in a girl's diary she'd be talking about something else (or you might see such a sentence in a Viagra ad). --Frank
Received on Thursday, 23 March 2006 16:52:48 UTC