The English language ain't what it used to be

Evolution is a natural process. Charles Darwin first coined the term explaining that only the fittest and the able could survive the stress and carry on and the weak and fallible succumbed. It must be strange but it can be observed that language too undergoes the process of evolution. Words and phrases are borrowed from other languages and are incorporated into it and are used so frequently that their origin language is forgotten after a certain point. For example, the phrase tete-a-tete meaning face to face interaction is used very frequently in the English language but only certain knowledgeable people know that the term was originally adopted from the French language.

Unlike evolution in nature, words go through evolution at an alarming pace and these days, the result is more comical than meaningful. The word friend in earlier times, used to mean a close acquaintance but after the advent of Facebook, friend is now used to relate to any random person. Similarly, the word green used to denote the combination of the colours yellow and blue, but it is used to refer to any material or programme which relates to the welfare of the planet.

Such comical anomalies are not restricted to friend and green, moreover even food has gotten involved in this charade. Earlier the term organic used to refer to the living matter in and around a person but now it refers to anything made naturally in a factory. Incidentally and perhaps one of the most important words blatantly used in today’s time is the word gay. It originally used to mean happy or joyful but people have completely changed the meaning to a homosexual person. The word has been warped so much that very few people in the world even remember that gay meant happy and had no connection to sexual preference.

Last but not the least; people have not even spared reality! Reality used to mean the perception of things the way they are but after reality television made its foothold in people’s lives, the very meaning of reality was warped to refer to way objects or people appeared on television. The hilarity of the scenario is not restricted to these words alone, many more exist. One just has to have a keen mind and a sharp sense of wit to digest the gross misinterpretation or change which these words have undergone.

P Pranay