Random Diatribe

Today, I'm going to deviate from the established purpose of this blog in order to vent about something that has been irritating the hell out of me for the past year or so.

That subject is the use of an old verb in a new, creative way, unrelated to its original meaning. In this particular instance, the verb in question is smash.

The old use was pretty well understood by all modern English-speakers. Without recourse to a dictionary, I would define it this way: "smash. v. To break or destroy an object made of a fragile material, such as glass, pottery, etc." Shatter would be a close synonym.

The new usage which bothers me so runs something like this: "smash. v. To eat a meal quickly and entirely, in a gluttonous manner." Devour is the closest existing "proper" synonym (in my house growing up, the word wolf was used as a verb to mean this).

For example, the sentence "Bobby smashed that plate of scrambled eggs!" woud mean two entirely different things to, say, my grandmother and my 20-something roommate. To grandma, it denotes that Bobby dropped the plate of eggs, or perhaps threw it against the wall in a fit of rage. To the Roommie, it means that Bobby was hungry and ate all, and I mean all, the eggs.

I understand that language will change, and probably it's pointless for me to whine about a perfectly natural phenomenon such as this. Still, it bugs the hell out of me.

There, I'm done venting for now. More will be updated on the conglang project, if I ever stop being lazy and get around to working on it some more.