Origins of 'sick' meaning noteworthy, admirable, exceptional, etc.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Crazy, man.

JL

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Origins of 'sick' meaning noteworthy, admirable,
> exceptional,
>              etc.
>
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>
> At 10:08 PM -0400 3/30/11, Martin Kaminer wrote:
> >My son chose his 11th birthday to ask me about this. Clearly words
> >developing slang meanings opposite to their original definitions
>
> as in "bad" (, badder, baddest).  It's been discussed in terms of
> "in-group" meanings exploiting the ignorance of those on the outside.
>
> >is common
> >in many languages but I couldn't find anything specific about the
> phenomenon
> >when I poked around online. I imagine there's even a term for it.
>
> Well, it's a subcase of the well- (or at least frequently-) explored
> phenomenon of "the antithetical sense of primal words", as Freud
> called it in a review that just celebrated its centennial.  But the
> focus there, and more generally in the case of words with opposite
> senses--antilogy, enantionymy, Janus words, contronyms, or whatever
> you want to call it (as in "cleave", "fast", "cipher", "sanction",
> "to dust", even "literally")--isn't specifically on the case of a
> slang opposite developing for an established word as you describe it,
> and I don't know of a term that zeroes in on that process.
>
> LH
>
> >  Regardless any pointers appreciated, those specific to slang uses of the
> >words 'sick' or 'ill' all the more so.
> >
> >Much thanks.
> >
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