(bouncy, lighthearted music)
- Words are pretty important,
in fact language would be
virtually useless without them.
And words are often very misunderstood,
especially in a living language
that's still evolving.
Old words fall out of disuse,
new words come into use,
and some words can even become
their own antonyms.
I'm looking at you, peruse.
This is nothing new.
Throughout history words
have been misunderstood.
Don't believe me?
Just watch.
Do a quick online search
for the word hedonism
and it'll turn up an adults-only
resort in Jamaica.
And, that's kind of appropriate
considering what most people
think hedonism means,
which is basically unabashed, unadulterated
indulgence of every whim or desire,
especially sexual ones.
But it turns out that's not
the original definition of hedonism,
and in fact that definition is called
folk hedonism among philosophers
who know hedonism.
Under the classical definition,
hedonism divides life into basically
two components: pleasure and pain.
Under hedonism, pleasure is
inherently good and is valuable.
Pain is inherently bad and should be avoided.
But you have to keep in mind
that pleasure can be more than just sexual.
For example, it can be intellectual,
like reading a book,
or it can be altruistic, like reading a book
to somebody who can't read.
And the true hedonists of classical Greece
would point out that short-term pleasure
should be avoided if it doesn't lead to
long-term pleasure which would be
far more valuable.
So keep that in mind, hedonists,
in Jamaica.
Britain's Prince Charles was recently
called a luddite for speaking out
against genetically modified organisms.
And so was Jonathan Franzen
when he spoke out against Twitter and eBooks.
And luddite's been long used, technically
to describe someone who's a technophobe,
somebody who scorns new technology
in favor of the old version.
But this is pretty far from the actual definition
of what luddite means.
Or at least where it originally came from.
It turns out the Luddites were a group
of skilled weavers from Nottinghamshire
in the early nineteenth century in England,
right at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Well, because of the Industrial Revolution,
the Luddites found themselves being replaced
by automated machines.
They didn't like this very much.
Nor did they like the fact that
their trade unions were suddenly outlawed,
leaving them little recourse to defend their jobs.
So what did they do?
They rioted.
The workers attacked the looms,
burned mills and even skirmished
with the British army.
In the end, a total of 25 Luddites
were hanged, and another 63 were
shipped off to Australia, which is almost as bad.
The Luddites, who named themselves
after a man named Ned Ludd,
a fabled figure from Sherwood Forest
who attacked looms decades earlier,
weren't anti-technology.
They were pro protecting their jobs and wages.
So the idea that someone who is
opposed to new technology is a Luddite
is actually kind of off.
You nimrod!
Have you ever called someone this
to tell them that they're a stupid jerk?
Well, it turns out the original Nimrod
who's mentioned in the Bible,
is not painted this way at all.
And he may actually have a cartoon
to blame for his name being dragged
through the mud like this.
The original Nimrod, who is the
great-grandson of no other than Noah,
and the grandson of Ham,
actually founded Babylon which is
the first great empire after the great flood.
Nimrod was a skilled hunter and emporer,
and he was responsible for building
the tower of Babel, which is a huge tower
with a temple on top that was
constructed to destroy God.
Well, God had other ideas,
so he created language among the workers
so they couldn't communicate
with one another and eventually
they just gave up and went back down
to the ground.
So how did nimrod come to mean
slow-witted or dumb?
Some people trace it back to a 1940's
Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Bugs is being hunted by Elmer Fudd
and he calls him Nimrod to sarcastically
comment on his hunting skills.
Pretty cool.
There are even more of these words
that have been twisted by the unfortunate
passage of time.
To learn about them,
go to HowStuffWorks.com,
and look up our article
Ten Historical Words that Don't Mean
What You Think.
You'll love it.