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Kinda takes you back to Alice in Wonderland, doesn't it - a word means precisely what you want it to, nothing more, nothing less! 
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a word means precisely what you want it to
Depending on how far out that you extends, yes.
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Well, how does this fly, then: "He was so angry that the blood drained out of his face, leaving him as white as a sheet. He was absolutely livid." [Cliché city. Get some new ones. In fact, get a life - Ed.]Now, no one would be in any doubt about the general sense of those two sentences. But would they associate "livid" with the pale face? I don't theenk so!
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The trouble with word changes is that while the speaker may know what he means, a large part of his audience does not.
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yes, true Bill - that's one of the things that fascinates me about the Great Vowel Shift, when it would seem people across England started to heavily modify their whole pronunciation of words so as to make one word sound like another in many cases... yet it seems to have happened over only 30 years, which is very rapid change in linguistic terms. I bet there were *many Bills getting *very upset at that...!
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I'm sure glad we don't have the dialect problems so common a few hundred years ago, when in England about fifty miles from home, a traveller could ask for "eggs" unsuccessfully, because in that locality they were called "eyren" (? sp.)
1. And certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne.
For we Englysshe men ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer stedfaste but euer
wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is
spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. In so moch that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were
in a shippe in Tamyse, for to haue sayled ouer the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte
Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them; And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to an
hows and axed for mete; and specyally he axyd after eggys; And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude
not speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde haue
hadde egges, and she vnderstode him not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wold haue eyren: then the
good wyf sayd that she vnderstood him wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or
eyren. Certainly it is harde to playse eueryman by cause of dyuersite and chaunge of langage.
(emphasis added) (Harris & Taylor, p. 86)
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Incidentally, that quotation raises another question. I have read that London's river, the Thames had the "th" pronounced as in "thin", until the first Hanoverian's Teutonic pronunciation compelled courtiers to follow his example. The spelling in the quotation "Taymes" clearly contradicts the claim of Hanoverian's having changed the pronunciation.
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Nice idea Max-- in fact it is Pure Brillience!
shall we try to include some radically changed words in our posts?
nice not that long ago was not a complimentary word.. (hints of its old meaning are find in the idiom "a nice bit of business" used to describe something underhanded, sly, rude or mean) and i am trusting Simon Winchester on this one, pure in victorian times, was a term for dog sh*t--collected and used by tanneries.
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old hand
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shall we try to include some radically changed words in our posts?I can't stand the radical change that's occured in "gay". It of course used to mean happy, and according to today's Bartelby.com feature, Gertrude Stein gave it the homosexual connotation. ( http://www.bartelby.com/66/52/55552.html) Then, because of the public's negative view of said group, it came to mean bad or unacceptable, but I think this use is generally confined to younger people. I constantly hear "that's gay" meaning basically "I hate that." It's purely an example of bigotry desroying a perfectly good word.
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Dear Max: I was a bit surprised by way you used "camp". TIME magazine long ago used it to mean lowbrow style or behaviour, it appeared to me from the context So I was surprised to find this definition in my dictionary:
>6 5orig., homosexual jargon6 [Slang]
a) banality, mediocrity, artifice, ostentation, etc. so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal b) exaggerated effeminate mannerisms, usually affected for amusement >
adj.
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>The trouble with word changes is that while the speaker may know what he means, a large part of his audience does not.
so true, bill -- I know someone who claims he was decimated by his church, and no one* knows what the heck he is talking about.
*well, almost no one
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I know someone who claims he was decimated by his church, and no one* knows what the heck he is talking about.
So, I guess, in this guy's world army units that decamp in the face of the enemy are tithed, then?
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Naw, they're talibaned.dr. bill, that particular line has been so oft-used that it may have become a tali-banality. 
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Have I mentioned this before? An Australian acquaintance uses winsome to mean something like persuasive, something that will win people over. To me, winsome does mean annoyingly "twee, saccharine, or frilly."
Bingley
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You guys want to give some explaination?
twee? is a new one to me.. I guess its something like frou-frou.. since its being paired with saccharine, or frilly.
where did it come from?
and it is used in UK or Canada? or is it a south of tropic of cancer speciality?
(and winsome to me would be coy and endearing.. a winsome gal might well be able to have her fellows wrapped around her finger and be able to persuad them to to anything.. but not persuasive.)
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twee (twç)
adj. Chiefly British.
Overly precious or nice.
[Alteration of tweet, baby-talk alteration of SWEET.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
frou·frou also frou-frou (frū'frū) .
n.
Fussy or showy dress or ornamentation.
A rustling sound, as of silk.
[French, of imitative origin.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Merkin Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Mav, where can I get a copy of that most excellent dictionary? I gather from your cite that is no longer published by Humpin Mufflin Company, as previously? 
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Dear Bingley: I am surprised to hear that you dislike "winsome". I think it is a very fine word, and entirely complimentary. It took some real slobs to change that word.Almost as bad as making a dirty word out of "gay".
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Per M-W on line: generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence
I could easy see that being annoying, particularly if the winsome person was undeserving of the approval gained by the childlike charm and innocence.
How would you define losesome?
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Dear Faldage: A loathesome choice of antonyms. It seems too much of a stretch from Germanic root of "win-" meaning attractive to "win" meaning to gain victory.
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I have a cousin called Winsome. She's not.
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Winsome is also used to mean coy and endearing here in Québec but it is a word that is rarely heard.
Twee...I like it. We don't use that word but if you gents don't mind I'll adopt it for use in the future.
Frou-frou in French Québec = frills made out of any material. Generally applied to kiddy clothing. Little girl undies ALWAYS have des frou-frous.
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A word of my father's:
fooff, n., alt. foof; the 'oo' pron. like the 'oo' in "good": someone who farts in the bathtub to make a bubble bath.
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Faldage quotes: generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence
OK now think of not real childlike charm and innocence but Hollywood's mock-up of it or an attempt by an adult woman to exert the same childlike charm and innocence and you get the general idea, to me, of winsome.
Bingley
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Hollywood's idea of heaven is my idea of hell.
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My idea of heaven has allus been sort of like a golf course without any holes.
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My idea of hell is compulsion to sing hymns for all eternity.
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My idea of hell is singing endless hymns while playing golf on a course without holes.
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sing hymns for all eternity
I'm with you there, Dr. Bill. However, there is a line from, I believe, the Rutter Requiem, a tenor line, during a portion when the basses aren't singing, that, if I *had to listen to one line for all eternity, would be the line.
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There is also an old joke about a guy in heaven looking down into hell and seeing a guy with bimbo on each knee and a bottle in each hand, and asking St. Peter if he couldn't be allowed to visit down there. St. Peter replies that he'd be disappointed. "The bottles have no bottoms, and the bottoms have no holes."
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great post about livid.. i too think of it as being a deep, dark red..
i know the word from cop shows (all you Law & Order fans do too) the cops and the corninors are always talking about the lividity of a corpes.. which i always thought was the deep, bruised like discoloration on the bottom of the corpes, where the blood had settled, not the pale grey, leaden color on top, the was drained of blood.
to be livid, was to be angry enough to be flushed, red faces-- almost blue faces.. with pulsing blue veins visible.
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To this day Sam doesn’t know for sure how he ended up (or down) in Hell, but he did. But he succeeded in getting out. Unheard of? Yep. But if anyone could do it, Sam could.
He arrived on the express elevator, where he was met by old Scratch himself.
“Sam,” boomed Mephistopheles, “We’ve been waiting for you. Yep, it’s a bit warm, but as we say, ‘it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity.’ Well, OK, I lied. It IS the heat. I’m gonna turn you over to this imp right here to get some background, then I’ll decide your punishment.”
After the interview Sam found himself again in Belial’s presence. “So, you like classical music? OK. You get to run a music hall for eternity. Asmodeus here will drop you off.”
Poor Sam. Turns out the “music hall” was a 24-hour disco operation. True torture to someone whose ear was as sophisticated as Sam’s was. In fact, it was so much torture that Satan turned down his request for air conditioning, but did in a moment of weakness allow him to put in ceiling fans. Word of the disco spread, and the place even became known in heaven, where there lived an angel named Glorietta.
Glory, as she was known to her friends, absolutely loved disco music, and importuned St. Peter until he gave her a 12-hour pass to visit Sam. “Remember,” cautioned Pete, “you have until midnight, and if you miss that last elevator you’ll be stuck in hell for eternity.”
Glory hung her harp and her halo at the door and danced divinely for hours and hours. It was only when she heard the clock striking midnight that she ran from the disco, grabbing for her harp and halo. The halo was there, but the harp was nowhere to be seen, so she left without it, just getting her wingtips through the elevator door.
And a week later Satan threw Sam out of hell. That ejection, of course, had nothing to do with Sam’s mentioning to Old Clootie that somewhere up there was an angel wandering around Heaven singing, “I Left My Harp in Sam’s Fan Disco.”
TEd
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Ooooo ....  Hell jokes. Well, there's this chappie goes down to Hell almost as a matter of course when he pops his clogs, given his earthly lifestyle which (to not put to fine a point on it) consisted almost exclusively of wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order or in equal parts. He's met by Old Nick (who doubles as a linguist on this Board from time to time). The slippery-heeled not-so-dearly departed's bad habits rather appealed to him and it was a slow day, and so The Man decides to give cut the new arrival some slack. "Right, my man, I'm going to let you inspect three rooms," says Satan. "You can look inside all of them as many times as you like, but you must choose one of them. Once you've gone inside your room of choice, that's it. It will then be your home for the rest of eternity or until the last trump, whichever is the least recent." Our newly-minted deceased is ever so slightly apprehensive, but what choice does he have? He is, after all, only a tyro in Hell, and he doesn't know the rules or the wrinkles or how to work the system. That may come, but now is now. "Room One," says Da Boss, and throws back the door. Inside is a huge pit full of faeces. Inside, damned souls are tiptoeing around up to their necks in it, trying to keep their heads above ... water, so to speak. "W-e-e-l-l, I dunno," demurs our dismayed, deceased diddy-bopper. "Homely. It has possibilities. Something I think I'd have to work up to, Sire. Maybe I'll just have a quick peek at Room 2?" "Done!" cries the Devil and slams the door shut on Room One, opening it again immediately. It has now clearly become Room Two, because while there is again a pit full of faeces, it's not so deep. Damned souls again, of course, milling around in it, indescribable smell, no one looks very happy, but there is one good point. They're only in it up to their waists. Our late lecher purses his lips and strokes his chin while the thinks about it. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if the first one was bad and the second one was better, that may well be an indicator that the third could just conceivably be even better yet, relatively speaking. Which is just as well, because our damnable dude ain't no genius. "Oh, what the hell, let's look at Room Three," he enthuses. The Devil obliging slams the door and opens it again. Inside is definitely different. Yes, there's the pit, and yes it's got faeces in it, but the penitents are only up to their knees. And what's more, there's a nice shiny chrome tea trolley by the door with tea, coffee and there's even some of those dinky little rice cakes which health-conscious people like to nibble at and pretend that they're actually eating something that's good for them. One look at the wraithlike wiggin wonder's face tells the Devil that he's made his choice, and he prods him in and shuts the door. Our friend shrugs, pours himself a cuppa and gingerly steps down into the mire. He's just starting in on his rice cake and gently blowing on his coffee to cool it when the door swings open again. Pouf, and the tea trolley, the cups, the coffee and tea, and even the rice cakes have disappeared. "Okay folks," the Devil shouts, "Coffee break's over. Back on your heads!"
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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he pops his clogsHow exactly does anyone manage this????
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Warning! Cross thread!
A new arrival in Hell was brought before the devil. The devil told his demon to put the man to work on a rock pile with a 20-pound sledge hammering 95 degree heat with 95% humidity.
At the end of the day, the devil went to see how the man was doing, only to find him smiling and singing as he pounded rocks. The man explained that the heat and hard labor were very similar to those on his beloved farm back in Massachusetts.
The devil told his demon to turn up the heat to 120 degrees, with 100% humidity. At the end of the next day, he devil again checked on the new man, and found him still happy to be sweating and straining. The man explained that it felt like the old days, when he had to clean out his silo in the middle of August on his beloved farm back in Massachusetts.
At that, the devil told his demon to lower the temperature for this man to -20 degrees with a 40 mph wind. At the end of the next day, the devil was confident that he would find the man miserable. But, the man was instead singing louder than ever, twirling the sledgehammer like a baton.
When the devil asked him why he was so happy, the man answered, "Cold day in hell, the Patriots must have won the Super Bowl!"
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