Eli5: Does every culture go through phases where words get ruined (literally, actually, etc…) by over/misuse? Also why?
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Linguists don’t really like prescriptivism and the idea of ruined, but all languages go through a process where words change their meaning and pronunciation over time, that’s why every language around today is very different than it’s ancestors. People in what’s now France didn’t just wake up one day and say, “we no longer speak Latin, we speak French now” what happened is that over time, because of a variety of different factors, meanings and pronunciations and conjugations changed until one day the language that was spoken was no longer recognisable as Latin.
Yes. Although your characterization of “ruined” is purely subjective on your part. Language evolves. Just look at how different the English is in Romeo and Juliet from how we speak today. Or even just the differences between UK, American, Canadian, and Australian English. Or to include some other cultures: the differences between Quebec French, Franch French and Algerian French. Or all the different dialects of Arabic. Words mean what we all collectively agree they mean; they have no “absolute” definition.
Authors poets journalists and anyone with influence will use words creatively even poetically. This makes their copy interesting to the reader, but stretches definitions.
One example I remember from study as a youth was the word ‘soon’ , an Anglo Saxon word meaning now. I saw it describing someone getting beheaded. ‘They died soon’.
Maybe in this case humor is to blame for meaning shift.
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