Room 101 - what single aspect of modern life should be consigned to oblivion?

[Petrushka]

I'm sure that I'm not the only one that would be happy never to hear another word about the Oscars

Ditto all the other vomit-inducing mutual back-slapping fests. There seems to be one every day.

[Lateralthinking1]

Room 101. I've changed mine.

Neighbours who create a building site on the boundary for a year and don't comply with the requirements set by the Council.

Councils who set requirements, don't enforce them, and when asked to do so repeatedly, don't communicate.

What they know presumably is if it ever went to court, they would blame the perpetrators, the perpetrators would say it was the fault of the Council, and the victims wouldn't be protected at all.

You could see everything you owned subside and the whole country would be against you.

It's started again. Unauthorised work and the Council refusing to comment.

Does anyone have a workable suggestion, ie not arson and murder. Currently I'm apoplectic and I'm playing with my lighter.

[cloughie]

Ditto all the other vomit-inducing mutual back-slapping fests. There seems to be one every day.

Things like that Classical or is it now Classic Brits thing -- these meaningless celeb awards things always remind me of the old Cadbury's adverts awarding the CDM. I suppose now post-takeover it would become KDM.

[Pabmusic]

The use of the word 'egregious'...there is an interesting sidelight. From the OED:-

adjective

1. outstandingly bad; shocking: egregious abuses of copyright

2. archaic: remarkably good.

A good example of this almost complete reversal of meaning is with the word 'nice', which started out in the 13th Century meaning foolish, silly or wanton. It has also meant ignorant, fussy, pedantic and choosy over the years. Even today, there are many occasions when 'nice' has definite negative connotations.

[vinteuil]

A good example of this almost complete reversal of meaning is with the word 'nice', which started out in the 13th Century meaning foolish, silly or wanton. It has also meant ignorant, fussy, pedantic and choosy over the years. Even today, there are many occasions when 'nice' has definite negative connotations.

... a nice distinction, sir!

Silly is another good example - having moved in sense progressively from happy, blissful, fortunate, lucky, spiritually blessed, pious, holy, good, innocent, harmless, deserving compassion, pitiable, miserable, helpless, defenceless, weak, feeble, frail, insignificant, trifling, ailing, foolish, simple, foolish, senseless, empty-headed...

[Pabmusic]

... a nice distinction, sir!

Silly is another good example - having moved in sense progressively from happy, blissful, fortunate, lucky, spiritually blessed, pious, holy, good, innocent, harmless, deserving compassion, pitiable, miserable, helpless, defenceless, weak, feeble, frail, insignificant, trifling, ailing, foolish, simple, foolish, senseless, empty-headed...

Yes!

[vinteuil]

A good example of this almost complete reversal of meaning is with the word 'nice', which started out in the 13th Century meaning foolish, silly or wanton. It has also meant ignorant, fussy, pedantic and choosy over the years. Even today, there are many occasions when 'nice' has definite negative connotations.

... and when the Duke of Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo that "it had been a damned nice thing" he was not saying that it had been pleasant - he was saying that it had been a narrow squeak.

[aeolium]

And of course the change in meaning of 'gay'. Does any teacher now dare to stand up in front of a class of teenagers and read Yeats' poem Lapis Lazuli, with its lines, "All things fall and are built again,/And those that build them again are gay."?

[Ferretfancy]

And of course the change in meaning of 'gay'. Does any teacher now dare to stand up in front of a class of teenagers and read Yeats' poem Lapis Lazuli, with its lines, "All things fall and are built again,/And those that build them again are gay."?

aeolium
The word 'gay' has been used to denote homosexuality since at least the end of the 19th century before coming into general use, so your comment does come a little late. The real tragedy is that the word has been changed by schoolchildren, not only to deride other, possibly gay children, but to attack anything that they disapprove of. This is the area in which teachers need to act, perhaps by 'daring'to read Yeats to their classes and bringing homophobic bullying out into the open.
Kids in school sometimes target others simply because they are different in some way, and their victims are not necessarily gay, and this causes great misery, sometimes leading to suicide.

I hope you do not think that I am over-reacting, but I remember 'queer hunts' in my own school more than sixty years ago, and it's depressing that so little has changed.

[kernelbogey]

[...] Does anyone have a workable suggestion, ie not arson and murder. [...]

Involve your MP?

[aeolium]

Ferretfancy, my comment was really only to regret that the relatively modern association of the word 'gay' with homosexuality had obscured its numerous earlier meanings, and that it's now virtually impossible to use the word except in its more limited sense. I think the late C19 usage of 'gay' to mean 'homosexual' was probably confined to America, and that meaning does not appear in the old 1933 Shorter OED which I have - though there are references to its use as 'addicted to social pleasures and dissipations' and 'of immoral life'.

I quite agree with your comments about homophobic bullying. On the other hand, it's also possible to regret a change by which a word which used to have several meanings and associations is reduced to just having one - that seems an imaginative loss to me.

[french frank]

I think the late C19 usage of 'gay' to mean 'homosexual' was probably confined to America, and that meaning does not appear in the old 1933 Shorter OED which I have

Interesting. I can remember someone writing in the Daily Mirror , probably in the 1950s (?) and saying that when he was in the US he was asked (dunno why) whether he was 'gay'. His baffled response had been that he was sometimes and other times not.


A single aspect of modern life that should be consigned to oblivion: people unknown to me (I think most often women) adding xx at the end of their group emails, tweets, messages of various sorts.

[Ferretfancy]

aeolium

Perhaps it is an imaginative loss that the general meaning of the word 'gay' has been confined to one idea, but it does to a large extent replace other less attractive adjectives. How about a campaign to promote 'jocund'? That's a rather nice Shakespearian word which fits quite a few situations!

[teamsaint]

Room 101. I've changed mine.

Neighbours who create a building site on the boundary for a year and don't comply with the requirements set by the Council.

Councils who set requirements, don't enforce them, and when asked to do so repeatedly, don't communicate.

What they know presumably is if it ever went to court, they would blame the perpetrators, the perpetrators would say it was the fault of the Council, and the victims wouldn't be protected at all.

You could see everything you owned subside and the whole country would be against you.

It's started again. Unauthorised work and the Council refusing to comment.

Does anyone have a workable suggestion, ie not arson and murder. Currently I'm apoplectic and I'm playing with my lighter.

do you have a copy of the planning permissions?
Remember that developments HAVE, at some point, to pass building regs.......can you pressurise on this aspect?

[Flosshilde]

Or 'bright & cheerful', which is the 50's useage that people who complain about homosexuals hijacking the word are harking back to. A housewife might be advised, in a woman's magazine of the time, to hang some 'gay gingham curtains' to brighten up the kitchen.

Presumably 'batchelor gay' referred to the 'dissipation' meaning.