As I was running the other day, this deep thought (that perhaps many of you have already had)crossed my mind. Why does AWE-SOME mean full of awe and AW-FUL mean having absolutely no awe like qualities except for maybe some unpleasant awe?
This has been deep thoughts with Mary Price.
Speaking of Jack Handy, this is one of my favorite deep thoughts:
"The crow seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
2 years ago
6 comments:
I think the connotation of 'awesome' and 'awful' used to be similar, both meaning 'filled with terrible power', or 'terrible to behold' or something, but in our culture, that has gradually changed. For no good reason, I might add!
- Will
I think the connotation of 'awesome' and 'awful' used to be similar, both meaning 'filled with terrible power', or 'terrible to behold' or something, but in our culture, that has gradually changed. For no good reason, I might add!
- Will
Why do we drive in parkways and park in driveways? Some things you just can't answer. :)
To Will, who is very much correct:
[The actual awe, in 13th c. a{ygh}e, was a. ON. agi, acc. aga (Da. ave), representing an OTeut. *agon- wk. masc. (of which the OE. repr. would have been aga); but this was preceded in EE. by native forms descending from OE. {ehook}{asg}e, str. masc.,:{em}OTeut. *agiz str. neut., Goth. agis fear, taken as if it were a str. masc. agi-z. (Both f. ag-an to fear.) The ME. eye, (aye,) and awe, were thus in origin and derivation distinct though cognate words, but were practically treated as dialectal variants of the same word, of which aye was still used in s.w. c1400, while awe was in the n.e. c1250. The sense-development is common to both. They are therefore here taken together; the examples being separated into groups {alpha}(from OE. {ehook}{asg}e) and {beta}(from ON. agi).]
Sorry, I forgot the comments don't keep italicized words and such, not to mention some of the abbreviations are not familiar, as they are not to me. But, I think you get the idea.
Thought this spoke to our conversation the other day.
http://home.adelphia.net/~dwedding/donald2/donatthebeach.gif
Also, Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.
LOL!! Kate that's great =)
Mary -
You should add links to others' blogs so that it is easier to navigate through the site!
"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it."
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