"Naughty" could mean "of no account." I remember hearing in an old
play a woman saying "She has nice manners" meaning she had no manners
at all, which some would construe as naughty.
Hal
On Aug 26, 2004, at 9:07 AM, Harold Owen wrote:
I think most of us are interested in how the meaning of words
change over time. One of my favorite examples is the word "nice."
Its original meaning was "naughty." I wonder how and when its
meaning was completely turned around.
"Nice" has had many connotations over the centuries, including many
which are not complimentary, but there are none which are synonymous
with "naughty", unless it's by some stretch of the imagination that
I'm not grasping.
The word was born in English from Latin "nescius". Ne- means not.
Scire at that time was "to know" (descended from an earlier root
meaning to cut). Modern Latinate languages have since moved on to
other words for "to know", but scire still has numerous descendants
(eg, "science").
"Nice" thus originally meant ignorant. Its meaning wandered along a
path of related meanings including timid, fussy, careful, etc, and
on to today's meaning. But I don't think any of these are
equivalent to naughty. Unless it is naughty to be ignorant.
mdl
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