Thread: Vulgar
View Single Post
  #6  
Old August 04, 2008, 08:55 AM
Elaina's Avatar
Elaina Elaina is offline
Diamond
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Midwest
Posts: 2,565
Native Language: English
Elaina will become famous soon enough
I found this to be quite interesting..........

vulgar·ness n.
Word History: The word vulgar now brings to mind off-color jokes and offensive epithets, but it once had more neutral meanings. Vulgar is an example of pejoration, the process by which a word develops negative meanings over time. The ancestor of vulgar, the Latin word vulgris (from vulgus, "the common people"), meant "of or belonging to the common people, everyday," as well as "belonging to or associated with the lower orders." Vulgris also meant "ordinary," "common (of vocabulary, for example)," and "shared by all." An extension of this meaning was "sexually promiscuous," a sense that could have led to the English sense of "indecent." Our word, first recorded in a work composed in 1391, entered English during the Middle English period, and in Middle English and later English we find not only the senses of the Latin word mentioned above but also related senses. What is common may be seen as debased, and in the 17th century we begin to find instances of vulgar that make explicit what had been implicit. Vulgar then came to mean "deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement." From such uses vulgar has continued to go downhill, and at present "crudely indecent" is among the commonest senses of the word.

What do you think? Is this what vulgar means to you? I did believe the word vulgar meant in poor taste and crude. The magazine I was reading was in poor taste and crude but vulgar, I don't know.

__________________
Elaina
All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. Walt Disney
Reply With Quote