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A time traveler landed in a 14th-century English village. He approached a farmer.
“This is a nice village you have here.”
The farmer punched him in the face.
“Why did you do that?” the time traveler asked, bleeding.
“You called my village stupid. And foolish. And wanton.”
“I said nice!”
“In 1300,” said a passing linguist who happened to be nearby, “the word nice means foolish, simple, ignorant. It comes from Latin nescius — not knowing.”
The time traveler stood up. “So I just insulted him.”
“Profoundly.”
“What did nice mean next?”
“By 1400, it meant fussy or particular. By 1500, delicate. By 1700, precise or accurate. By 1800, agreeable or pleasant. The word went from stupid to kind over five centuries. Nobody knows why. It just… drifted.”
The time traveler wiped the blood from his lip. “Are there other words like this?”
“Silly used to mean blessed. Awful used to mean awe-inspiring. Bully used to mean excellent. Naughty used to mean having nothing — from nought. It went from poor to evil to mischievous to slightly sexy.”
“So every word is a time bomb.”
“Pretty much.”
“How do you know what anyone means?”
The linguist shrugged. “We guess. Mostly we get it right. Sometimes we get punched.”
The time traveler adjusted his translation device. It was set to 2026. It had no idea what was coming.
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