English will never be something I fully understand
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Hi OP – I looked up the different definitions of ‘terrific’ – it actually did used to mean ‘causing terror’, but that is now considered an archaism…
The old definition of terrific was to cause terror, but since it also can mean a large amount or something large or dense, it shares a definition with the word great. So it started being used interchangeably and the words definition evolved to include it meaning a great or good thing.
The logic behind such shifts in meaning is approximately the same as the one that has relatively recently made the word “sick” mean awesome/great in slang.
That’s becuse of all the history and varied influences in English. Wait till you hear awful (coming from full of awe).
Another funny example is inflammable. It means yes it can catch flame, but uses “in-” prefix which can mean the opposite of (direct vs indirect). But the “in” in this case is from Latin which means “in/into”, so “to put into flame”
But in everyday use, nobody tries to understand words from etymology. You can, but you’d have to know which language the influence came from, which is just asking for trouble.
“Terrific” is similar to “nonplussed” where the colloquial meaning is changing. “Nonplussed” literally means so shocked you can’t speak, but it’s used more and more to mean something like underwhelmed or bluntly uninterested.
Same thing happened to “terrific”.
Languages evolve sometimes in unexpected ways: a sarcastic or non-literal meaning takes on and overtime folks stop using the original meaning and it falls out of use all together.
Also compare “awful” and “awesome”. Very similar to “terrible” and “terrific”.
“Literal/literally” is a another good example too, actually.
Word change meanings, as others have said – so Terrific changed meaning
Reminds me of this quote from Terry Pratchett
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
Terrific used to mean “causing terror” but it was largely used as a term of emphasis, slowly detaching from the root word “terror”. (For example, I’ve seen examples in old literature like the expression “a terrific noise” to mean a noise that inspires terror, but also, the term could be used to describe just a really loud noise, even if the noise is not specifically terror inducing.) Then, that term of emphasis began to be used indiscriminately, as if it were neutral and usable for both good and bad. With people forgetting what the original usage was, the meaning drifted because people only remembered the use of this emphasis for emphasis on positive things.
Linguistic drift happens like that. Consider how we got expressions like “What the fuck?!” Originally, that expression was not used, and people said things like “What in the Hell?!” as if to say that something they were witnessing were so terrible or intense or shocking that it must have emerged out of Hell. (Even this is a more intense version of the expression “what on earth?”, for things which are so terrible that “earth” won’t cut it.) This was back when society was much more religious, and “Hell”, the place of eternal damnation and agony, the place of everlasting torment and burning punishment for the wicked, demons, and fallen angels, was a pretty intense thing to say, and was almost treated like a swear word, or at least not to be said outside of specific religious invocations of the term. The term got shortened to “What the Hell?!” But over time, as society became less religious, “Hell” lost its taboo edge, and another term that was still taboo, “fuck”, got substituted for “Hell”, giving us the modern expression “what the fuck” even though it the expression itself is rather nonsensical.
“Terrific” seems to have lost its edge the way “Hell” has. And in the same way, you even see “Hell” drifting away from its original meaning and used for intensification (even if it is positive), in expressions like “hell-yeah!” and sayings like “that was a hell of a performance” (which is using ‘hell’ for positive emphasis), or even the Oakland term of emphasis “hella”, whereas this expression would not have been acceptable around polite company back when “Hell” was not a polite thing to casually say.
People who use English learn words from eachother, and sometimes those words become expressions. Expressions are very quick ways to talk with other people. They include things like compliments to make them feel good, or insults to make them feel bad. Another type are greetings. Good morning is an expression and a greeting that actually means something like “hello”. But people say it even when the morning is actually very bad.
Terrible and terrific come from the same place that terror does. It sounds weird, but when something is supposed to be scary, terrific and terrible can both be compliments. Terrific probably became a compliment because many people in the past used it that way, maybe to tell their children how scary they were on Halloween.
Horrible and horrific have a similar story. They both come from the word horror. The difference is that people didn’t use them as expressions enough to change their meanings, maybe because nobody wants to feel horror.
The real story is a lot more complicated, and we can never talk to the thousands of people who changed the words we use. Many times through history, people decided languages needed to be easier and then fixed mistakes like this. Other times, the mistake survives so long that it isn’t easy to see. And then, only language professors remember it was a mistake. Tracing a word through the past is a science called etymology, and you can google a word with “etymology” to find answers. Those answers are also part of a bigger science about languages called linguistics.
interesting, ive always been thrown by “terrible” in french being a positive, but it never occurred to me that there was a similar situation in english.
Because of this thread:
TIL terrific does not mean terrifying in the modern context. I’ve been using that word wrong for all my life lol
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