The famously cool NATO alphabet—Alfa, Bravo, Charlie—has a surprisingly genius history

If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at someone using “literally” to mean “figuratively,” you’re not alone. Every generation has its linguistic hills to die on. Words that, to some ears, have drifted too far from their “real” meaning.

But here’s the thing: words have been evolving for as long as there have been humans to speak them. Language moves the way people move, shifting through time, place, and culture. And along the way, it reinvents itself in some pretty fascinating ways.

Think about how “awful” once meant “awe-inspiring,” how “nice” used to mean “foolish,” or how “girl” once referred to any young person, not just a female one. The English we speak today is like a living history book, rewritten every time we open our mouths.

Here are a few more terrific examples (and by that we mean in the modern sense of “excellent,” not “terrifying”) that show just how dramatically English has changed. And how, in the end, everything turns out just fine.

Artificial

This one still mostly means what it has always meant, in that it refers to something not naturally made. However, it originally implied some kind of artfully or skillfully made object. Now when we say something is artificial, we are almost certainly not praising it.

Awful & Awesome

“Awe” comes from either the old Norse word “agi” or the old Middle English word “ege.” Both meant terror or fear. Therefore, both “awesome” and “awful” once meant more or less the same thing: something that inspires a fearful reverence. Dread mixed with deep admiration, that kind of thing. Something awe-SOME had a little less oomph than some aw-FUL, but otherwise they carried the same meaning.

In that sense, today’s version of “awful,” i.e. something that utterly dreadful, is truer to its original iteration than “awesome,” usually denoting something generally positive.

Awesome gif media1.giphy.com

Bemused

Its old meaning was "to confuse, or to stupefy,” as if you hit someone with some kind of magic spell. Merriam-Webster still defines “bemuse” this way, but colloquially we use it to convey amused pondering.

And you know what? Considering there are plenty of synonyms for "confused, we can afford to let this one go.

Bully

Crazy to think that a word originally meaning “sweetheart” now takes on a nearly opposite meaning…unless your sweetheart likes to throw you in lockers and give you swirlies. One theory is that it became associated with “ruffian” because a bully may have been a “protector of a prostitute.” Still, those that still say “bully for you!” know that it can still take on a positive context.

Condescending

In the 18th century, it was seen as a kind, generous, humble gesture when an upper class person was kind enough to talk to a lower class person instead of ignoring them or treating them like a servant (what a concept!). By the 19th century, however, the word had already developed the negative connotation we use today.

Egregious

Egregious comes from the Latin ex grege, meaning "rising above the flock." Therefore, it meant exceptional or distinguished. You could argue that today egregious still means something exceptional…just exceptionally bad.

Factoid

Factoids used to be public statements that seemed like facts, but weren’t necessarily. Fact-adjacent, if you will. Or better yet, they were bits of fake news. Now we liken factoids to fairly unimportant bits of trivia. But they’re at least accurate!

Fathom

It can be hard to fathom how this verb went from meaning “to encircle with one’s arms” to meaning understanding something complex, until you know that outstretched arms could be used to measure a fathom, which is equal to about six feet (usually in term of depth of water). Once you had a grasp on what a fathom of water was, you could better measure the depth of the sea. We might not be as seafaring as our ancestors, but we are still trying to get a better idea of the world around us.

Fizzle

The verb fizzle once referred to the act of producing quiet flatulence. In the mid-1800s, scientists began using "fizzle" to describe the sound of air or gas escaping from a narrow opening, which led to its application for a weak or sputtering noise. From there, American college students took it on to convey something that came to a sudden failure or stop after a good start, usually an answer to a professor’s question. And now, we use it to describe things that lose their gusto gradually before ending entirely. Quite a journey, for a fart word.

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Girl

Once upon a time, “girl”, aka “gyrle” was just a gender-neutral term for a child. As for how it came to mean young woman specifically: In his book An Analytic Dictionary of the English Etymology, Anatoly Liberman noted that German words starting with “g” or “k” and ending in “r” tended to refer to living creatures “considered immature, worthless, or past their prime.” Cool, cool, cool.

Guy

This word, or eponym, rather, “Guy Fawkes,” is the fella who was part of a failed attempt to blow up British Parliament in 1605 who folks used to burn in effigy. Before “guy” just meant any ol’dude, it referred to a grotesque or scary person.

Hussy:

Interestingly enough, hussy was once just a shortened version of “housewife.” It certainly makes more sense when you look at "husewif," the Middle English spelling. Over time, the shortened version became an insult to unmarried women as though any unmarried woman, and therefore not a housewife, weren’t a full woman.

Matrix

Long before Neo took the red pill, the word “matrix,” coming from the Latin word mater (mother), meant "womb,” uterus,” or even “breeding animal.” It makes that fetus pod he breaks out of all the more disturbing.

Meat

In Old English, “meat” was just a general term for “solid food.” In the Middle Ages, the meaning began to narrow, and the term "flesh-meat" was used to specify the animal flesh used for food (which is pretty metal). So technically, you can enjoy “meat and drink” even with you vegan friends.

meat media1.giphy.com

Moot Point

Originally, a moot was a formal gathering where leaders could all sit down and confer with each other, particularly over legal matters. So anything “mooted” was deemed an issue important enough to be tabled for group discussion, or even could mean “undecided and open for debate.” By the early 20th century, we see it transform to mean something not worth debating at all.

Naughty

The original “naughty” meant you were poor and had nothing, or “naught” in the way of riches. Thankfully today we use it to denote indulgent, sinfully enjoyable things. Because that’s way more fun.

Nice

This word arrived in the English language by way of Old French, where it meant foolish or weak (which makes you wonder why there’s a city in France named Nice…). During the middle ages it evolved to mean shy, reserved, or fastidious. Interestingly, it wasn’t until the mid- to late 1700s—those qualities respectable were beginning to be seen as respectable by society—that the word started to take on more pleasant meanings. Of course, we now sometimes use nice to describe someone who is pleasant enough, but a bit milquetoasty…which is kind of a full circle moment.

Nimrod

We have Bugs Bunny to thank for this one. Nimrod was the name of a skilled hunter and powerful king in the Bible. However, when Bugs sarcastically referred to Elmer Fudd as a “nimrod” in Looney Tunes, people that didn’t understand the reference thought it meant “dumb” so it changed how the word was used. At least, that’s how the most popular theory goes.

Bigs Bunny. media0.giphy.com

Nonplussed

In the 16th century, to be nonplussed was to be surprised or confused. As a North American I had to reread the sentence because it didn’t make sense for the person to be unperturbed. Somehow, today we take this to mean someone that is not only not confused, but unperturbed entirely.

Peruse

If you were to peruse something in the 15th century, you’d be examining it very carefully, which is quite different from the casual, nonchalant scanning we understand it to be nowadays.

Quell

Quelling something or someone used to mean killing it, rather just subduing it. Please don’t quell anything the old-fashioned way.

Silly

In Middle English, the word seely meant happy. Blissful even.

But by the time it became silly, it had come to mean someone helpless, and therefore pitiable. From there it came to mean naive, and has since arrived at its modern meaning of ignorant or foolish.

Fun fact: In 1861, during the months of August and September, journalists would compensate for a lack of hard news by filling up newspapers with trivial stories. This period would become known as the “silly season.”

Terrific

It’s easy to see how in the 1660s, terrific meant something that filled you with terror. What’s really confounding is how it morphed into meaning something magnificent, but here we are.

Wench

Similar to girl, the Old English word wenchel referred to children of either sex. When shortened to wench, it denoted a “female child” specifically. However, its root word is likely related to the Old English wancol, meaning "unsteady" or "weak.” From here you can see how it came to mean an unsteady, and therefore lewd or wanton woman.

Wench meaning media0.giphy.com

So the next time someone “literally dies laughing” or calls something “terrific,” maybe give them a pass. Words change, and that’s part of their magic. Who knows? A century from now, people might think “vibe check” referred to some kind of medieval ritual.