Notoriously infamous

There is another one which the media constantly mix up
Diffuse - to spread or make less concentrated
Defuse - to make a difficult situation calmer by reducing or removing the cause.

And they did have it wrong as they weren't exactly standing open-mouthed praising God about it - but the hyperbole of saying how "awful" something was when they were secretly not at all awed by it continued until "awful" gradually became the standard word for "terrible" (which itself means inducing actual terror, not annoyance) or "horrible" (which literally means making your hair stand on end with horror, not just causing you to refuse to pay and to avoid that restaurant in future)

But the "grownups" did doubtless tell off the young upstarts for taking God's name in vain by using words that implied that their "awful" experience was actually something sent specially by God to fill them with awe - so in pointing out that using a word to mean the opposite of what it has meant for centuries is a sure way to confuse your hearers/readers, we are carrying on an old tradition of slowing down drastic changes so that they can be assimilated into the living language without destroying the texture already there.

Elegran

Glorianny

OK so how many of you use "awful" in its proper sense which means you are full of awe for something and how many just use it as a synonym for dreadful or terrible, something you don't like?
Not many I bet.

But did that happen overnight, as a result of some teenager misusing it in what they mistakenly imagined was the right meaning, and no-one being brave enough to point out what it usually meant, or was it gradually as a result of generations of exaggeration and hyperbole by people over-egging their accounts of their "awful" experiences, which had "overawed" them (so they implied)?

Well I would imagine that someone had to be the first (or one of the first) to misuse the word. Probably with a lot of older people telling them they had it wrong.

Thanks Elegran not something you want to get wrong is it?.

Calendargirl

I agree about sinks and basins.

Sinks in kitchens, basins in bathrooms.

And ‘drawers’ in bedrooms, not ‘draws’. In fact, ‘drawers’ anywhere in the home.

Even when it is a 'Chester draws?' as I once saw in a local ad.......

i think there is a technical difference between flammable and inflammable, but i can't remember what it is at the moment.

grandtanteJE65
i'm interested that you refer to the personal care item as a hand-wash-basin, rather than a wash-hand-basin.
was that a typo, or is it a scottish variant, a bit like the <outwith> which puzzles non-Scots on first hearing.

Glorianny

OK so how many of you use "awful" in its proper sense which means you are full of awe for something and how many just use it as a synonym for dreadful or terrible, something you don't like?
Not many I bet.

But did that happen overnight, as a result of some teenager misusing it in what they mistakenly imagined was the right meaning, and no-one being brave enough to point out what it usually meant, or was it gradually as a result of generations of exaggeration and hyperbole by people over-egging their accounts of their "awful" experiences, which had "overawed" them (so they implied)?

sodapop

Then there is the one which always confuses me - flammable and inflammable

That always used to be inflammable = "likely to become inflamed (maybe originally enflamed?) enough to go on fire" - but so many people thought it meant that it was in- (not) -flammable and wouldn't burst into flame, and so was safe to use near fire, that just flammable was used. an example of sensible variation from the original meaning. Note how the in- or un- prefix added a "not" in so many minds.

We've always had a bathroom sink and so have most people I know. I've never heard anyone refer to it as a wash basin. We must be a bit common in Brum!

Grandma70s

Mancjules

Up north we have always had sinks!

Not in the bathroom in my north! The bathroom has a wash basin.

Same in my north, too -it was always a sink in the kitchen, but wash basin in the bathroom .

I've read a great deal of work (fiction and non fiction) from 100 years ago and even further back. Most of it is easy to read and make sense of because common understanding of word meanings didn't change very fast and, I think, writers cared about accuracy and correctness in the work they produced.

I'm inclined to think that 'You know what I mean' is one of the laziest get outs ever for poor grammar and word choices.
But no-one dares correct it these days.

Dictionary compilers claim that they reflect usage. It always intrigues me as to what extent of critical mass is needed to convince them that usage has changed.

(OMG 'convince' used as a synonym for 'persuade'. One of my teeth grinding moments )

Well it is sinks where I come from- possibly because there weren't that many bathrooms and most of us had parents/grandparents who sent you to the sink to get washed.
A basin was something you cooked a pudding in.

Mancjules

Up north we have always had sinks!

Where up north?

In Strathclyde we assuredly had wash-basins or hand-wash-basins at home and at school in bathrooms or toilets and sinks in the kitchen.

I grew up just round the corner from one of Shanks' biggest factories and they did not advertise bathroom sinks!

I don't doubt your usage, but as I am fascinated by dialectal usage I would love to know where your north is.

OK so how many of you use "awful" in its proper sense which means you are full of awe for something and how many just use it as a synonym for dreadful or terrible, something you don't like?
Not many I bet.

Then there is the one which always confuses me - flammable and inflammable

Correct that figure - should have been 300 years.

Fancythat The 1700's were 500 years ago. Infamous didn't mean famous right up to yesterday, and its dictionary meaning is still the same. Unfit still doesn't mean fit - though it has only two little letters of difference, and if you see someone described as unfit for public office, you don't raise a cheer to find an honest man at last.

Young people have an excuse for not knowing the meaning of a new word, at first. They may not have met it before and it may be similar to another word. However, by the time they are "grown up" and constructing a website that displays "many infamous photographs" it is reasonable to assume that they had enough "education" to have met and understood common words in their native languuage, and to be able to use them without irony.

I would expect an infamous photograph to be of something like, for instance, Boris Johnson arriving at a party at no 10 during lockdown with a Fortnum and Mason carrier full of bottles of booze, or Jimmy Savile leering at a child in a wheelchair, not the well-known ones of past events and influential personalities that appeared in the website I linked to above.

Do English teachers no longer point out common prefixes like in- and un- added to words, which add "not!" to the words they are stuck to?
edible inedible
active inactive
digestion indigestion
fertile infertile
famous infamous
done undone
able unable
fit unfit

and many more.

Charleygirl5, i’ll for ill could be autocorrect. Mine does it all the time - and just tried it again above. I have to watch it like a hawk.

Sinks are firmly in the kitchen or utility here - not that we have a utility, alas.

I'll see your infamous and raise you a fortuitous, which, in spite of common parlance, does not mean fortunate.

Dictonaries always change.

So what is "right" language?
What is in the "best" dictionary, right now?

I expect his has been discussed many times before in Pedants Corner.
May be best I leave you all to it!

I think there is a mixture of all sorts of reasons why language changes.

Who says what we have right now is "right"?

If language was to be put back to how it was used and spelt 100 years ago, is that then "right"?
And now is actually "wrong"?

I’ve heard some people say unorganized - I’ve always said disorganized. Similarly unregular rather than irregular.
It jus sounds wrong.

I agree about sinks and basins.

Sinks in kitchens, basins in bathrooms.

And ‘drawers’ in bedrooms, not ‘draws’. In fact, ‘drawers’ anywhere in the home.

Elegran

fancythat

The meanings of words forever change.
We think meanings and spellings are set in stone but they are not.

I gave up bothering with such things when I saw maps of the county I live in, circa mid 1700s? So many of the spellings of places had changed. The majority of them.

So if I say that a meal is disgusting does that mean that it was really enjoyable and I loved it? If I tell someone she looks like a cheap whore in a certain dress does it mean that I am complimenting her on her elegant and attractive choice? If I call my children S**tA**e and C**tFace can I expect the teacher to use those names in class?

Being too ignorant to realise that you are using a word to convey its complete opposite meaning is not just "the meaning of a word naturally shifting its meaning with time." It is throwing meaning into the wheeliebin and then complaining when those hearing you misunderstand what you are saying and treat you as though you are stupid. No, people hearing the wrong meaning being implied KNOW that the person who thinks that meaning is correct is stupid.

You are saying people are ignorant and stupid.

I say that young people in particular, choose to use a word in a different way.

Like saying something is "sick".
And numerous other examples.

It may be slang in the first instance.
It may be culturally using English words differently.
It may be used in pop music or whatever it is called, to be shocking or a talking point, or they think it sounds good etc.

But to call all those who do it, ignorant and stupid, is rather harsh, if not incorrect in some instances I would have thought.

Oreo

He’s only 4😃

Plenty of time to set him right then !