Have you ever considered what happens to a word when it’s
let loose in the wild? The weird relationships people force it to have? The way
its meanings slosh around? If you haven’t, please take a moment and consider “blaze.”
Blaze (noun): a particularly bright fire. Duh.
Blaze (verb): to burn with particular intensity. Sure.
Blazing (verb): to burn with particular intensity, in the
present tense. Feel like you’re on safe ground? But there’s another present
tense verb form.
Blazin' (verb): to smoke marijuana. Now you’ll say there’s a
kind of burn involved, but then explain these next two to me.
Blazed (verb): to have burned with particular intensity. Add
a ‘d’ and it conjugates to the past tense; but had an ‘r’ and…
Blazer (noun): a semi-formal jacket. This is never
purposefully on fire. Never you mind mutations like…
Blaz (adjective): a particular shade of a color, such as
blue.
Blaise (noun): a divine gambler.
I love language but turn your back and it changes up on you!
ReplyDeleteThe original Blazers were bright red. Then the term came to mean coloured jacket and now it's as you say above.
Long live words!
I've long since ceased to be impressed by how words change over time.
ReplyDeleteThat's right. I'm blasé.
Change is all around. I still have hissy fits at various nouns being forced to be verbs though. To 'grow' your business sets my teeth on edge.
ReplyDelete