Language change

[Ann Dowker]

"Cool" itself seems to have slightly shifted meaning, at least in England.
15 years ago, it was definitely teen-scene slang. Nowadays, it is
colloquial but standard among youngish people, to mean "fine", "O.K.!",
*great!" Oxford students would not yet write in an essay, "X's experiments
were really cool"(!), but it's *very* common for a student to say to a
tutor: "A tutorial at 3:30 on Tuesday would be cool", and the like.

Ann


  On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Stephen von Tetzchner wrote:

> Norwegian: "fett" og "diskret"
>
> Stephen
>
> At 11:51 12.08.99 -0400, you wrote:
> >Isn't it spelled "phat" ?
> >
> >Ann
> >
> >
> >
> >> Also in youth slang: "fat" and "discrete" have taken a meaning of similar
> >> to "cool".
> >>
> >> Stephen
> >
> >
> >
>
> Stephen von Tetzchner
> Institute of psychology
> University of Oslo
> P.O. Box 1094 Blindern
> N-0317 Oslo, Norway
> Tel: +47 22855344 (direct) /+47 22855233 (main office)
> Fax: +47 22854419 /+47 22854366
>
>