If scientists had a time machine, having a conversation with a Brit from even just 250 years ago could be very confusing.
Although they’d be speaking the same language as us, the meaning of many English words have dramatically changed.
In fact, the mention of things like ‘fudge’, ‘meat’, ‘pink’, ‘stripe’, ‘flirt’ and ‘artificial’ in a certain context could send our 18th century ancestors into a muddle.
Lynne Cahill, a linguistics professor at the University of Sussex, said some words change their meanings and others don’t because ‘there are lots of things going on’.
‘As our lives change, we need words for different things, so some meanings go out of use (think of different types of horse-drawn carriage) and new ones come in (think of technology, like mobile phones and computers),’ she told MailOnline.
‘Languages deal with these things in different ways, sometimes using existing words with related meanings to refer to new things.’
MailOnline has scoured the historical records and dictionaries to find more than 40 words that once had a very different definition.
So, would you have guessed their original meanings? Scroll down for the full list.
MailOnline reveals the common words that used to have a very different meaning – including ‘meat’, ‘pink’ and ‘secretary’
MEAT
As anyone today will know, ‘meat’ refers to the whole gamut of commonly consumed animal flesh, from pork to beef and lamb.
But until surprisingly recently – the 19th century – ‘meat’ was used in the British Isles to refer generally to any type of solid food.
The word ‘meat’ comes from the Old English ‘mete’, which means ‘food, nourishment, sustenance’.
So certainly in the old meaning of the word, vegetarians are meat-eaters too.
FUDGE
‘Fudge’ we know as the delightful sweet treat, a favourite of domestic holidaymakers.
But if you lived in England in the 18th century, you’d know the word to mean something ‘put together clumsily or dishonestly’.
Until the 19th century, the word ‘meat’ was used in the British Isles to refer generally to any type of solid food
Despite being a quintessentially English treat, fudge has its origins in the 19th century United States
Allegedly, this old-fashioned meaning stems from an Old English seafarer known for spinning false tales, called Captain Fudge.
If someone had heard something they considered a lie, they might loudly proclaim it a ‘fudge’ – and mean nothing to do with the brown sweet treat.
Although a much-loved British confection, fudge has its origins in the US, where it may have got its name due to ‘fudged’ attempts at making caramel.
GARBAGE
The word ‘garbage’ instantly conjures up big, filthy piles of waste.
But it originally had another food-related meaning – the internal parts of a butchered animal, like a chicken or a fowl.
In fact, the 15th century Boke of Cokery – believed to be the first cookery book printed in English – has a recipe for ‘Garbage’ using animal entrails.
So when we say a food is ‘filled with garbage’, we could actually be talking about dishes containing offal – such as haggis or steak and kidney pies – and not harmful additives.
The word ‘garbage’ used to refer to animal entrails, which have historically been used in cooking too, in dishes such as haggis (pictured)
Today, the word ‘secretary’ has strictly professional, work-related connotations (file photo)
SECRETARY
Sometimes, parts of words give away their former meaning.
Today, a ‘secretary’ is an employee who deals with office correspondence, makes appointments and carries out admin tasks.
But if we look at the first six letters, we see the word ‘secret’ – hinting at its original meaning during the Medieval era.
A secretary was simply someone entrusted with secrets of a superior – not necessarily in a work-based environment.
Today, if you entrust a loved-one with your deepest secrets, they are arguably your secretary too.
PINK
As recently as the 17th century, the word ‘pink’ referred to not Barbie’s favourite colour, but a murky shade of yellow.
The colour we know as pink would have been described it as ‘rose-coloured’ in reference to some roses with that attractive light reddish hue
Of course, the word ‘broadcast’ pre-dates radio and television, but it was used by a very different group of people – farmers
Oxford English Dictionary describes the original pink as: ‘A yellowish or greenish-yellow lake pigment made by combining a vegetable colouring matter with a white base, such as a metallic oxide.’
Meanwhile, the colour we know as pink would have been described it as ‘rose-coloured’ in reference to some roses with that attractive light reddish hue.
Although this may seem bizarre, in the visible colour spectrum, there is no frequency of the colour pink. Instead, what we see as pink is a combination of wavelengths – red and purple.
ARTIFICIAL
It’s somewhat ironic today considering the advances of AI and robotics.
But from about the 15th or 16th century, ‘artificial’ literally meant something handcrafted by humans requiring great skill or labour.
What was ‘artificial’ was made in imitation of what was natural and real – a painting or a sculpture, for example.
This old definition is to some extent alluded to in the modern meaning; after all, today’s AI has been created by humans.
Humanoid robots that wash dishes, vacuum the carpets, cook and pick up dirty laundry could be available within a decade – and all for the price of a family car (stock image)
BROADCAST
Meanwhile, ‘Broadcast’ pre-dates radio and television, but it was used by a very different group of people – farmers
Dating back at least to the 1700s, it used to refer to sowing seeds in a field by casting them about, perhaps with machinery.
It was later adopted for describing the widespread distribution of information by print – paving the way for its common meaning today for radio and TV.
OTHER CHANGING WORDS
‘Pen’ is a good example of a word evolving as a sign of the times, taking on a new meaning to replace the old one. It comes from the Latin word for a feather (‘penna’), because the first pens were quills.
Meanwhile, the word ‘clue’, for example, used to mean a ball of thread or yarn.
‘Because of its associations with various mythological stories, especially Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth, it took on the meaning of something that helps to find your way through a maze and, by extension, helps to solve mysteries,’ said Professor Cahill.
And following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, ‘guy’ meant a dastardly or frightful figure, before becoming a general word for a male.
MailOnline’s full list below compiles more than 40 words with different meanings from British history.
So, would your nervous guy be nice to fizzle on my broadcast furniture?
