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A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
Term Location of origin Targeted demographic Meaning origin and notes References Campbellite: United States: Followers of Church of Christ: Followers of the Church of Christ, from American Restoration Movement leaders Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell, the latter being one of two key people considered the founders of the movement.
Bad or taboo words for many things far outnumber the "good" words. Hugh Rawson notices in his book Wicked Words that when looking at Roget's International Thesaurus, there are "89 synonyms for drunk, compared to 16 for sober, and 206 for bad person compared to 82 for good person. The synonyms for unchastity in the Thesaurus fill 140 lines ...
Negative words such as bad [9] and sick sometimes acquire ironic senses by antiphrasis [10] referring to traits that are impressive and admired, if not necessarily positive (that outfit is bad as hell; lyrics full of sick burns). Some contronyms result from differences in varieties of English.
Profanity is often depicted in images by grawlixes, which substitute symbols for words.. Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or ...
Slang usage of bitch in a protest. Bitch (/ b ɪ t ʃ /) [1] is a pejorative slang word for a person, usually a woman. When applied to a woman or girl, it means someone who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, controlling, aggressive, or dominant. [2]
Niggardly (noun: niggard) is an adjective meaning 'stingy' or 'miserly'. Niggard (14th C) is derived from the Middle English word meaning 'stingy,' nigon, which is probably derived from two other words also meaning 'stingy,' Old Norse hnǫggr and Old English hnēaw. [2]
Much more controversially, a 2014 study of "Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks" manipulated the balance of positive and negative messages seen by 689,000 Facebook users. [156] The researchers concluded that they had found "some of the first experimental evidence to support the controversial claims that emotions can spread throughout a ...