English will never be something I fully understand
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“Terrible” has also changed over time. It is now mostly synonymous with horrible or bad. “How was the movie?” , a response of “It was terrible” means that it was bad. Historically though it was indeed related to describing something powerful or fear inducing. Best example of this is the Russian tsar named Ivan the Terrible. That does noy mean “Ivan the Bad” but more “Ivan the Powerful or Ivan the Awe Inducing”
I think the meaning of the word changed due to its use to describe storms. A terrible storm was used to describe a powerful one. Now people think more of the damage left behind and a terrible storm became a bad storm.
“Terrific” used to be a synonym for “terrible”, but over the years, it became an antonym. As recently as 1937, “terrific” was still used in its original sense (listen to Herbert Morrison’s radio broadcast of the Hindenburg disaster as it unfolded).
Terror and horror aren’t really tue same thing. The example I heard was this: “You and your friend are working down a hallway, you feel terror when you see the shadow of a monster around the corner. You feel horror as you watch it eat your friend.”
Terrible and horrible aren’t really the same thing: horror is “oh my god, it’s eating them” (extreme disgust) and terror is “and now it’s going to eat us” (extreme fear)
Apparently they’ve drifted apart overtime. There’s a radio broadcast of the hindenburg disaster and they say “terrific crash” and they don’t mean it in any positive sense of the word.
At the 00:30 mark https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ad9tholMEM
“Terrific” and “Terrible” both used to mean “terrifying”. However over time, the meanings diverged so ‘terrific’ ended up meaning ‘terrifyingly good’ and ‘terrible’ ended up meaning ‘terrifyingly bad’. And of course, we just use ‘terrifying’ for the general concept
And why do you park in a driveway but drive on a parkway?
If pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of Congress?
Why does ordinary mean plain but extraordinary mean special?
Golly!
From Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific.
The wand chooses the wizard, remember … I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter … After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things – terrible, yes, but great.
As a side note, Terror is a feeling of anticipation, Horror is a feeling of reaction. The EMS worker was terrified of what could be in the apartment, and horrified of what they saw.
Words like this evolve so often there’s a word for them: Contranyms – they are a word that through usage become their own antonyms.
The fact that the English speaking world is such a bunch of sarcastic assholes that we have a name for this is something that makes me laugh.
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