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What Does “Nasty” Actually Mean?
You can’t teach kids that name-calling is bad if it’s OK for your president
Filed under the Title: “Things you don’t think about until you do, and when you do, you can’t really believe the depths of hell to which we’ve sunk, and can’t imagine how we can ever find our way back.”
Maybe the answer is to not try to go back, but to change direction — start going up instead of down.
The origins of the word “nasty” seem to be either Old Norse or perhaps Dutch. The earliest references to use of the adjective in Middle English date from the late 14th century, when the meaning was said to be “foul, filthy, dirty, and unclean. Interestingly, speakers used the word nasty literally, as in the description of a bird’s nest, as well as figuratively, to describe a villainous person.
Further meanings of the term nasty over time include:
· 1600 — Indecent, obscene
· 1630 — Unpleasant, offensive
· 1825 — Ill-tempered, mean
While in England nasty was often used to refer to an ill-tempered person, in America the term developed a distinctly “nastier” tone, commonly referring to something that smelled or tasted disgusting, literally. But taking a page from the English, Americans…
