getting over it

...is a term I've taught to my English Language students. All it basically means is when a words changes meaning, and there are different forms of this:

Broadening: when the word originally meant something specific, and now includes more than it used to. (Kleenex for any tissue, for example, which is also 'Commonisation' btw.) 'Meat' used to mean any kind of food.

Narrowing: the opposite of broadening.

Deterioration: When we turn a word into something nasty. 'Erect'. 'Gay'. 'Hussy' (which used to mean housewife, btw.)

Elevation: the opposite of detereoration.

...anyway, you get the gist.

What it's got me pondering is: will our language ever semantically stay motionless? Do people realise that we speak an ever changing language? Or is it just old people that seem to be bitterly aware that they're not up 'with it'?

I wonder if i'll one day sit down at a computer or in a cafe and think "What the hell are these people talking about?" It's like in 'Finding Nemo,' when the fish says (about the baby stoner turtle) "It's like he's trying to speak to me."

Who knows?
AFK :P