Hey, nice to see all the comments on "igry". I posted a response to stripe's comment at Language Hat, and thought I ought to repost it here:
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The "or descriptive of such poor social behavior" part of the igry definition wasn't part of the original definition we came up with. I was merely describing how the word came to be used among my acquaintances. Such is language. After seeing enough people do igry-making things, it just became easier to say "Oh, my god, did you see that igry thing he just did?"
Anyway, another word that shows a similar transitiveness of sense is "nauseous" (which has a nice thematic similarity to "igry"; perhaps that similarity is why it was so easy to make the "igry" usage shift), which can mean both "causing nausea" and "affected with nausea". Some people think that the "affected with nausea" sense is incorrect, and that only the word "nauseated" should be used for it, but Merriam-Webster slaps them down:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=nauseous
Hey, nice to see all the comments on "igry". I posted a response to stripe's comment at Language Hat, and thought I ought to repost it here: ----------------- The "or descriptive of such poor social behavior" part of the igry definition wasn't part of the original definition we came up with. I was merely describing how the word came to be used among my acquaintances. Such is language. After seeing enough people do igry-making things, it just became easier to say "Oh, my god, did you see that igry thing he just did?" Anyway, another word that shows a similar transitiveness of sense is "nauseous" (which has a nice thematic similarity to "igry"; perhaps that similarity is why it was so easy to make the "igry" usage shift), which can mean both "causing nausea" and "affected with nausea". Some people think that the "affected with nausea" sense is incorrect, and that only the word "nauseated" should be used for it, but Merriam-Webster slaps them down: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=nauseous
posted by fheaney 20 years ago
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