A post on another forum intoned: "'Drivel' is right, 'dribble' is wrong". This led me to the OED and the discovery that "drivel" in the sense of worthless speech actually started off as "dribble". So the use of "dribble" for "drivel" is just a case of going back to the future, as it were. That then got me thinking about "nice". I would love a T-shirt that says: "Shift happens - only nice people say otherwise". That got me wondering about the evolution of nice from pejorative to compliment, and on to today, when it is increasingly used as a pejorative term once more. That's the elliptical evolution of the thread title. Not circular, since the pejorative usage of "nice" is not the same as its earlier pejorative sense, but still similar in spirit anyway.

Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, there is something akin to a point to this rambling. Are there other examples of similar evolutions, in which a word's meaning has shifted through spectrums and come back to a point not far from its origin? And would anyone like to design that T-shirt for me, preferably with the firs two words in AS, or even better, PIE?

I didn't know that nice was/is drifting back to being bad. I occasionally use it sarcastically, but the interpretation is to be obtained from my tone and facial expression, not actual meaning of the word.

Oh, dear--I have belatedly realized that my post sounded not only abrupt, but dismissive. I am sorry. My intent was to get across that even when a word is used a lot as sarcasm, I hadn't been aware that that could lead to a change in meaning.

Edit button FTW?

Anyways, if it doesn't reach the same conclusion, then isn't it an irregular parabola? Follow-up: What the hell is a regular parabola?

a parabola, lie like a circle, elipise, and a hyperbola are basic shapes of non euclidian geometery.

they can be expressed as a formula (X= 1 , Y=0)(i have no memory of the formula's and so don't have any idea what that would work out to)on a graph with an X/Y axis.

the basic shapes (listed above) can be 'seen as' what you would get it you took a cone (a solid 3d object) and cut it horizontally (a circle); slightly diagonally (an elipses);
Vertically (parabola): diagonallly at such a sharp angle that the angle of the sides of the cone were increasing faster than the cut, so that you'd never reach the other side! (that is the hardest to visulize!)

(all this is dredge up form elementary school--and mea culpa if i've gotten one wrong..(some younger soul with more recently memory will correct me!))

there is more to geometry, (non euclidian geometery) than these basic shapes.. (but unless prodded,i don't think i will remember them!)

Jackie, IIRC, nice used to mean "silly."

Not circular, since the pejorative usage of "nice" is not the same - "helical evolution", in my view, would be a more apt metaphor for this interesting phenomenon: contrary to an ellipse, a helix is not a closed curve.

Pretty close on the discussion of conic sections if only you hadn't included the unnecessary detail "non euclidean".

Perhaps you are recollecting that hyperbolic and elliptical are the names of two categories of non-Euclidean geometries, but I doubt they would have mentioned that in elementary school unless you were very very advanced.

No, i most definately learned them in elementary school (7th and 8th grade to be exact) I wasn't advanced (ok so maybe i was) but the school most definately was. my elementary school 'tested' the curriculum of 'new math' about 5 years before it got rolled out on the rest of the world. our 'text books' were all paperbacks, and the stuff we learned was different than anyone else.
i also learned binary and octal before JFK became president-as part of the same new math curriculum (mind you, though, i am 47--you can check my profile in AWAD)--maybe or maybe not advanced, but certainly precocious!

It drove my parents crazy--a few years later (early/mid '60's) when new math became part of the national conscious, my mother was a pro at the techniques and subject matter--by then, she had 3 kids who had been doing 'new math' for years!.

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Not circular, since the pejorative usage of "nice" is not the same - "helical evolution", in my view, would be a more apt metaphor for this interesting phenomenon: contrary to an ellipse, a helix is not a closed curve.

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Thanks. My grasp of geometry is distinctly non-Euclidean. More uselessean, actually.