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The same thing happened to the word "meme". It went from "unit of mimicry and replication" to "funny image macro on social media".
by thewakalix 5y ago
The same thing happened to the word "meme". It went from "unit of mimicry and replication" to "funny image macro on social media".
- jonsen 5y agoAre you referring to "entertainment" or "culture" ?
- RajSinghLA 5y agoYour confusion seems to validate the author’s choice of ‘culture.’
- krisoft 5y agoWords gain new meanings. It doesn’t kill the old meanings. From context people understand which meaning one talks about. And for those who haven’t heard of the Dawkinsian memes? Well I guess it wasn’t that succesfull of a meme after all.
- dredmorbius 5y agoIt's kind of awesome how happy accidents like this come to pollute a myriad of word meanings, though many people have absolutely no clue, and simply cannot fathom how eerily words can divest meanings, such that the meat of their importh is utterly changed. Reading this very paragraph a few centuries ago it would have seemed quite silly, with naughty interpretation.