Wondering About Words
Wondering about Words
I was out yesterday, and I left my teen daughter home with my teen son. She texts me (this part is not unusual, she'll actually text me from another part of the house), and her words made me laugh and then wonder about the origin of our "sayings". You know those things we say that we've heard a million times and we "know" what they mean even if the words don't really add up to that exact meaning.
For example -- "Can of Corn" -- means an easy catch in baseball. How can those words -- next to each other -- possibly mean an easy pop fly catch by a baseball player in the outfield?
So here is what she said in her text -- "He (her brother) keeps screaming at me to get a life. Whatever that means he keeps screaming it at me."
You're laughing, right?
How did the combination of "get a life" come to mean "go away" "leave me alone" and "you're a loser."
Just wondering.
1 Comments:
Indeed! And how did a magnificent word such as "awesome" come to mean anything from a hamburger to a decent parking spot!!?
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