semantic drift: "scream"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

This sense of "scream" is already recognized by those slang dictionaries that have managed to get to the letter S!
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-----Original Message-----
From: Indigo Som <indigo at WELL.COM>

Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:22:09
To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] semantic drift:  "scream"


How about "screaming" as an equivalent to fabulous, great, amazing?
That's been around for a while. "That party was screamin'!" In
particular, I remember wearing a spectacular pair of striped pants to
work one day (Oakland CA, circa 2002) & my client admired them,
saying "those pants are screaming!" That comment stood out in my mind
because I don't usually wear screaming clothes (flamboyant, colorful,
&c.), not because I thought screaming was a strange word to use. What
can I say, I was proud of those pants!

>Gentlemen, please. My posts do not assert that advertising is
>destroying our language or that earlier meanings of "scream" have
>suddenly been extinguished.
>
>   They say instead that the neutral or positive use of "scream" in
>the Dell ad is markedly odd.  Whoever is behind the advertising copy
>seems to have picked "scream" because earlier advertising staples,
>like "proclaim," have been sucked dry, although those of us not
>trying to flog anything to America's trendoids remain perfectly free
>to use them. And I said "drift," not "shift," and "inflation," not
>"destruction."   I would mark Dell's "scream" as "poor diction" on a
>freshman theme and frown deeply while doing so.
>
>   If I'm the only one who finds this use of "scream" peculiar in
>brainstormed, vetted, and edited prose, so be it. But if I am, the
>semantics of "scream" are indeed shifting, just more extensively
>than I thought.
>
>   Next time I hear somebody screaming, I'll just assume it's ice
>cream they want.
>
>   JL
>
>
>James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: James Harbeck
>Subject: Re: semantic drif t: "scream"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>So "Scream, Blacula, Scream" implies no more horror than "Speak,
>>Blacula, Speak"?
>>  I stand corrected, but you guys must find poetry to be unusually challenging
>
>An interesting contention, given that an understanding of poetry
>typically requires knowledge and understanding of all the possible
>nuances and connotations of a given word. I would think that a
>refusal to accept certain meanings that are in use would make poetry
>more of a challenge.
>
>The use of "scream" you cite is fairly common in the parts of the
>continent I've lived in. No horror is required. It often has somewhat
>camp overtones, though.
>
>James Harbeck.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>
>
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--
Indigo Som
indigo at well.com
http://www.indigosom.com

Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org