[Ads-l] words connected to a single provenance

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Aug 27 15:14:38 UTC 2018


Interesting.  I don’t watch much FoxNews, I confess (i.e. any), but I haven’t noticed the noun ameliorating, while I have encountered both the corresponding adjective “infamous” and its cousin “notorious” ameliorating and/or bleaching to mean just something like ‘famous’.  But not for all uses of “famous”—I’d be surprised to hear Beethoven described as an infamous musician or Rembrandt a notorious artist.  The shift is more something applied to those whose fame derives from the celebrity culture, at least as far as I’ve noticed.  Is this shift described in print somewhere?

LH




> On Aug 27, 2018, at 7:48 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> RE: <infamy> 'ill repute, ill fame, loss of reputation, disgrace,
> discredit, shame, dishonour'. But
> the word is consistently given a positive spin by Brian Kilmeade of
> FoxNews: <infamy>
> 'good repute, positive fame, honour'. Such a positive re-interpretation of
> the negative "day that
> will live in infamy" flips it the other side of FDR's rough draft neutral
> "day that will live in history".
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



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