RP290 Slang Evolution

 RP290 Slang Evolution

Slang keeps languages alive. Expressions are coined, spread far and wide, and eventually used quite differently than when they began. American slang comes from surprising places, and it's often quite hard to trace, so take these definitions with a grain of salt!

Do you ever go see big Hollywood blockbusters? You would have paid to stay away from the original “blockbuster.” The word we now use to describe a huge movie was the name of a giant bomb used by the British in World War II. It was powerful enough to destroy a city block. That's how it got this name.

A cheesy romantic comedy could be a blockbuster. “Cheesy” means trite, obvious, and sentimental, but originally it meant the opposite. It was picked up in India by the British. They used the Urdu word chiz (thing) to mean a big thing or a big deal. Chiz came to mean showy. Over the years, the definition was turned upside down. Where it once was a compliment, now“ cheesy” is an insult.

Dude! We use this to get someone's attention or to emphasize a point. You can call almost anyone dude—anyone your age or younger. But in the 19th century, “dude” meant a fashionable, ignorant city boy; someone who couldn't make it in the rough American West. It was often used as an insult.

About that grain of salt... to take something with a grain of salt means to think about it critically rather than believing it automatically. It suggests that a piece of information might not be true. This is the oldest term here. It comes from the Latin cum grano salis. A grain of salt was part of a recipe to help poison antidotes go down more easily, but as salis in Latin can mean both “salt” and “intelligence,” it became a warning to use your wits.(Always good advice!)