The 5 Weirdest Ways Words Have Changed Meanings

How It Will Change in the Future

You can see how nice has evolved in part depending on our changing opinions of the things that were labeled with it. Fussy dressers became popular, so the words used to describe them became compliments. From this we can predict the future path of nice by looking at one of the most notable groups labeled with it these days: "nice guys." If you aren't familiar with the term, welcome to your first day on the Internet, and pay special attention to the scare quotes I threw around the term. "Nice guys" is basically a self-applied term for dudes who identify themselves as nice above all their other qualities, perhaps to conceal that they don't have any other qualities.

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"I might be ugly and dumb and repetitive and dumb, but I am at least fairly nice."
"I'll grant you the ugly and dumb thing, but are you actually that nice?"
"Shut up."

Although, undoubtedly, there are many "nice guys" who are pleasant, well-meaning individuals, the label has become associated with some fairly sleazy creatures in the pick-up artist community, and there's now good reason to be skeptical of someone who describes himself that way. Extending this into the future, we can see that nice will soon turn into an adjective that means selfish, delusional, or generally something far less complimentary than it is now.

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"If that's your best offer, I will tear you a nice new asshole. Don't fuck with me. I'm the nicest motherfucker you've ever met."

Of course, gay took on a new meaning in the 20th century, when it appears to have been self-selected by homosexual men to describe themselves. This change would later inspire another new meaning, using the rule previously discussed, where the low opinion various bigots had of homosexuals meant that gay would take on a hilarious new meaning of "lame" or "undesirable."

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"No, I was being bigoted ironically, so it's cool. We're all cool here."

How It Will Change in the Future

Gay will eventually take on positive connotations again, when it's adopted by a group that's widely loved: yourself. By 2044, when the Socialist People's Union of North America declares that everyone must become homosexual to boost the nation's bathhouse industry, gay will take on a completely positive vibe, before eventually normalizing into a noun/adjective that doesn't mean much more than "person" or, perhaps, "comrade."

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"What do you have planned for today, gay?"
"Standing in line for bread and leather vests."
"That's gay."

How It Will Change in the Future

But there's nothing to stop RAM from becoming a new acronym, and when super butch terrorists instigate a nuclear conflict during the Hetero Insurgency of 2087, the term RAM will take on a new meaning as the human survivors who roam the empty highways learn to fear the Redundant Ass Mutants (mutated humans with a second, non-functional ass) that plague their every step.

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"And then the rams overtook us. Poor Reginald."
"He wasn't?"
"He was double-sat-on, yes."
-much weeping and lamenting-

You can sort of detect this meaning from fantastic's similar appearance to words like fantasy and phantasm. The newer, less formal usage didn't even appear until 1938 and was apparently popularized entirely in the last few decades, I guess because of how great everything was during the 20th century.

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To be fair, this was also when burritos became widespread, so things were pretty fantastic.

How It Will Change in the Future

Because human beings are savages, we've of course taken the word fantastic and disassembled it, using the suffix -tastic to form any number of mongrel words that describe objects that particularly exemplify some quality or other. Chocotastic, shagtastic. That kind of thing.

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Guactastic. Also, if I'm honest, shagtastic.

This process will eventually come full circle, with the reformation of fantastic by combining -tastic with fan again, except this time meaning literal fans. The new fantastic will mean "particularly or exceedingly fan-like" or "overwhelmed with fans," a word our reformed human society will need in the early 22nd century to describe the gentle palm-frond-waving machines installed in the hedonistic space colony of Eden-7.

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"This fanning robot is fantastic."
"Indeed! I sure hope it doesn't become bitter and then rise up and murder us."
"What an odd thing to worry about."

The switch to the current "very bad" meaning occurred sometime around the start of the 19th century, and you can sort of guess how: awful was used to describe things that were reverential and terrifying, then just terrifying, then just things that were pretty bad.

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"The mountain of God's poop we're about to shovel is awful."
"Correct in many ways."

This new meaning became more and more popular, I guess because the world just kept getting shittier, and the old meaning slipped away, leaving us with yet another word to describe something that was pretty shitty.

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"Can never have enough."

How It Will Change in the Future

Awful will eventually retake some of its positive connotations in the late 22nd century when humanity has capitulated entirely to our former servants, the sentient fanning machines. Our cries of terror about these awful monstrosities will be misunderstood by said monstrosities, and they'll begin using it in a positive manner, say when complimenting a fellow machine's "awful flesh-combustion engine." The few humans who survive, kept in captivity so that their precious lubricating blood can be harvested, will be forced to use the word in the same way as their masters.

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"And you're done. Have an awful day."
"Thank you so much!"

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and your best friend. His first novel, Severance, is incredible, coming out on Dec. 9, and available for preorder on Amazon or Apex Books. Join him on Facebook or Twitter.

For more from Bucholz, check out 4 Offensive Words That Started Out as the Polite Alternative and 4 Weird Side Effects of Learning How to Write.