I love words. What would we do without them? And I can't help but feel sorry for the ones that we abandon.
Things change. In fact everything is always changing, one of the immutable rules of life. If something doesn't appear to be changing it's probably just changing so slowly that we don't notice it.
Words change too. What means one thing one day might mean a different thing the next. Or if not exactly the next day then possibly the next decade or next century. Take the word 'nice”. These days it's a vague and overused term for something that is pleasant. Back in the days of Shakespeare it meant ignorant and foolish. No one quite knows what led to the change but it would certainly confuse Elizabethan time travellers.

Pretty's become nicer
Another one from those days that seems to have become 'nicer” over the years is 'pretty”, which once meant cunning, sly or tricky. Probably an important thing to bear in mind when studying Chaucer.
Lots of words have different meanings today than they once had. Sad used to mean satisfied or content. Sophisticated used to mean unnatural or contaminated. Egregious used to mean outstandingly good and now means exactly the opposite. The list goes on...
My favourite, which has only switched meanings in the last fifty years, is enormity. I blame World War Two. In its aftermath so many people spoke or wrote of 'the enormity of Hitler's crimes” that everyone assumed the word was something to do with the word enormous. Actually, no. As Websters helpfully points out, enormity refers specifically to an outrageous, improper, vicious or immoral act, an atrocity or monstrosity. That's why it was used to talk about Hitler. It's not the size that matters, it's the wickedness.
But things change. Possibly because the correct word - enormousness – is such a mouthful, enormity has now, literally in the past half century, come to mean something of great size.

It's all history
Then there's the words that just get lost. They may be unique, they may be useful, but history just leaves them behind. Crapulous. I really like crapulous (as, again, did Shakespeare). It once meant to feel ill because of excessive eating or drinking. Good word and kinda useful. Gone. Another word of similar vintage was twattle which meant to gossip. Nothing wrong with that either but, somewhere along the line, people just forgot to use it.
But it's not just forgetting to use words that leads to their disappearance. Sometimes, like so many things in life, they just get superseded by a better word. My favourites in these stakes are a pair of words – deasil and widdershins, which I think both came from old Gaelic. Both were essential words until someone went and invented something that made them obsolete. I'm sure you can guess what the marvellous invention was when I tell you the words that replaced them: clockwise and anticlockwise. Not quite as poetic but certainly much more practical (but only after inventing clocks).
OK. That brief diversion lasted a bit longer than I expected. Let's get on to some music.

Rotorua raging
The most fun that's happening this weekend is actually just down the road at the Rotorua Blues Festival. It actually kicked off on Wednesday night but it really gets into gear over the long weekend. There are blues cruises on both Saturday and Sunday on the Lakeland Queen (two acts on board each sailing), a musical party in the street on Saturday and bands playing continuously at downtown venues (all within a couple of blocks) all weekend.
The headlining guest is Australian guitarist Jimi Hocking (who's played with The Angels, The Screaming Jets and others) and the band Cadillac Walk are also over from Melbourne. On the Kiwi front there's Mike Garner, Brilleaux, B-Side Band, Ian Goodsman, EastSlide Blues, Laura Collins and the Back Porch Blues Band, and much more. Lots of this is free. Check it out at www.bobblues.com/bluesfest.
And, looking forward to next week. Keep Sunday June 9 free. It's the launch of the new 'Entertainers Club” at Bureta Park which will feature Brilleaux (unplugged), Jeff Smith's Auckland jazz combo That's Life and more. Further details on this next week.