Supergrunch

Of course, it would (and probably will) change in meaning. But lexical semantic change is notoriously impossible to predict, so it's unclear exactly what'll happen in the future. But changes from positive to negative and from negative to positive are both possible. (I think nigger was originally coined by white people just as a descriptive, if slangy, term, which then of course got bundled up with slavery and racism)

I agree with you on the second point, as I was only joking really. But in the first case, there are many etymologies (in fact, the vast majority) which simply aren't part of the current language, with practically no speakers, or in the cases of unknown etymologies, no speakers at all, knowing them. For instance, the one I gave goes back further than Latin. Of course you can make clever references to etymologies, but that is crucially not using the word the normal way, and so you're giving the word a different meaning. I'm aware it's fashionable in Postmodern literary approaches to investigate the use of words in a work by morphologically decomposing them in unexpected ways, or going into their etymologies, but if these are things that both the writer and reader are ignorant of, then it's a futile enterprise. It's a fallacy to suppose that etymologies influence lexical meaning other than in the cases where speakers are aware of these etymologies, because that requires the incorrect supposition that language exists independently of speakers. And in almost all cases, history is totally irrelevant to the way words are currently used. Of course, as I said above, in those cases where it is relevant, it's best to think of it as part of the word's current umbrella of meaning, and so it's not really an etymology or history.

I hope you're making sure that you only use nice when you mean (or wish to imply) "not cut" then. Seriously though, you can ignore almost all the history of words, and when you can't, it's because that history is actually part of the current meaning of the word. So your argument of course stands, but if you use a word like nigger without knowing its connotations, then it's as much that you're ignorant of usage (and thus meaning) as it is that you're ignorant of history. Calling someone a nigger then claiming you weren't aware of its pejorative connotations is really no different to calling someone a cunt, then saying you thought that it meant "happy rabbity person" - assuming you genuinely are mistaken, in both cases you just don't know what the word means. (as an aside - you're not using ad hominems unless your argument is of the form "you are [insert insult] and thus you are wrong," which isn't what you're doing) Because you can't just sit back and decide how word-usage is going to change, as it requires the whole community to follow you. So unless you impose totalitarian restrictions on the use of language, which is arguably impossible, the only way meanings are going to change is if they do so naturally. However, one fairly common semantic change involves originally pejorative terms being reinterpreted as badges of honour, as with e.g. nigga and geek.

What I was trying to say was that many of the problems arise because people conflate race/culture and skin colour, which needn't be the same thing at all. Black skin shouldn't be something to avoid mentioning because it indicates you (or your ancestors) come from areas where it's advantageous to have melanin-rich skin, any more than people don't avoid mentioning the fact that lots of people from colder climates have blue eyes. This is especially true when you realise that the genetic differences within races are far greater than those between races. Of course on top of this, there are a whole load of problems surrounding cultural discrimination and how to avoid it, but society is really still at a level where certain "sensitive" features are given cultural connotations that they needn't have. Which seems both a more serious problem, and one that is more immediately addressable. (For the record, I've met one culturally "black" person at Cambridge, if that's even really a culture as opposed to a mish-mash, but only one. And I guess they might dispute that.)

Ultimately, shouldn't skin colour be viewed as something like eye colour? I'd say hair colour, but blond(e) and ginger have some pejorative connotations that eye colour doesn't. But yeah, some feature of people that's actually fairly aribitrary. At the moment, skin colour is still too controversial to mention, but ideally it would just be thought of as another aspect of the way particular people look.

Well presumably you blocked all the relevant cards immediately... the only other thing you need to worry about is identity theft, because driving licenses have your photo, signature, and address on them. It's unlikely anyone will use them, but check your statements and so on vigilantly. And yeah, it's a good idea to split all your money up, and keep money separate from cards.

Fun fact - ReZ's use of brackets seems fairly similar to 16th Century usage.

Something similar happened to me in Geneva a while back. It kind of ruined the holiday (I was only there two days, and also got bad food poisoning ), but it wasn't too bad in the end - I went straight to the police and got a report and rang my insurance, and then I got the vast majority of the money/stuff I lost back from them. I still haven't got round to getting another provisional driving license, hoever...

I'll be on shortly.

Placebos have been shown to work even when the patients are told they're placebos, for IBS at least (see also this Guardian article on the research).

I'm pretty sure Rowling has signed away an awful lot of the Potter universe to other companies, especially for merchandise - it may be they're allowed to do what they want with regards to films.

Well, one way to help resurrect it is for all of you to join (and idle if nothing's happening).

In half an hour, I will have my first drink in 53 days. Stupid illnesses. In before jokes about not having any water etc.

I very much doubt anyone random would be able to find out my address(es) from Facebook/the internet. How are you suggesting people would go about doing it?

I just looked through a load of my past statuses - they're either about linguistics, or just random things like complaints about the weather, so I think I'm okay.

I actually found Endless Eight funny. All eight times.

Welcome to the NHK, Clannad (if you're massively sentimental about families), Honey and Clover, some of the Miyazaki stuff (if that counts as anime). But yeah, it's a short list, as anime is mostly about style and entertainment over everything else. Which isn't always a bad thing.

I haven't - maybe I'll do the same as you over the summer and see whether it changes my opinion.

I want proper dungeon crawling, which is what was originally going to be in it (and hopefully, still will be).

Finally handed in my master's thesis, after spending far too long trying to write it with post-viral fatigue... But now it's done, and just a viva to go! 20,000 words is a lot of words, it turns out.

Replace that with Fargo and I totally agree, but I never thought No Country For Old Men was that outstanding. Although it's good, of course.

But then on the page for philology, it says: Which it doesn't seem to be really, unless you use philology in a really broad sense. Ah well, disputes about nomenclature are pointless. Let us return to good stuff!

Yep, what they call classics in the UK, with classical philology being the subject that deals with things like reconstructing proto-Indo-European. Anyhoo, both are cool. Will have to investigate the Scandinavian terminology for these things.

Philology as in comparative reconstruction etc., or as in learning the languages? (the latter is normally called "classics" in England, although it's a general term that covers culture and so on too)

I really have no idea, just found it on somebody's Tumblr ages ago. I was hoping someone here would be able to tell me...