Language change

Stephen von Tetzchner s.v.tetzchner at psykologi.uio.no
Thu Aug 12 14:54:09 UTC 1999


At 07:10 12.08.99 -0700, you wrote:
>A particularly lovely example is the way "yeah,right" has come to mean
>"no", or perhaps more explicitly "no way".  Audrey Holland


In Norwegian child and youth slang, negation may actually increase the
strength of a statement instead of negating it: "Not good at all" will then
mean "very good".

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



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