Word Matters cover image

Ice Tea and Semantic Drift

Word Matters

00:00

What You Do About Nothing, the Transitivity of Verbs Have Changed Over Time

The word wonder has also changed over time, I assume, right? Wonder now is about, we think about a child's wonder. Oh, wonders about really fear at that point. Exactly. The possibility of destruction and how far that can go and how far to shock you and all you. Gets back to awe, right? Which is word like fear. Sure. And so from King James, the next place you look, of course, is Shakespeare, right? And sure enough, he uses wonderful,. But listen to this from Hamlet, it's a wonderful little example of the different use of wonderful, but one that we might not notice.

Play episode from 07:03
Transcript

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
Get the app