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Someone else asked Are camp followers prostitutes? and the answer seems to be that while not every one who follows a military camp is a prostitute, if you aren't referring to a prostitute, you should probably pick another label for the person.

A similar effect can be seen with sexually themed words like "mistress", "madam", "ejaculate", and "escort".

I assume this linguistic process has been studied and I'm curious what its name is.

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Michael Lorton
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    I don't see where you got your "answer seems to be..." idea from. The only person suggesting that was the original OP - both in the question, and in his own answer to it (which currently has no upvotes). All other comments and answers pretty much agree with the top-rated answer, which says the term can be used in non-military contexts in which there is clearly no improper suggestion. Which is not to say other examples don't exist - just that "camp followers" isn't a particularly good one. – FumbleFingers Nov 21 '12 at 00:36
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    @FumbleFingers I’ve heard that Judy Garland has camp followers, too. :) – tchrist Nov 21 '12 at 01:00
  • It's called "language change" or "lexical evolution" or "a word means what the users understand it to mean" or "descriptivist evolution". Just depends on whether you're reactionary & ultra-orthodox or tuned in to what people say & what they mean by it. I don't agree that when only one of many possible meanings becomes the only current meaning of a word, that the meaning is "improper", just tendentious. Word meanings broaden & narrow over time as well as with the dominant ideology in a social group. "Improper" is, strictly, a moral judgment, but language, like Nature, is amoral. –  Nov 21 '12 at 03:33
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    Perhaps this is related to the euphemism treadmill. –  Nov 21 '12 at 05:19
  • Useful wiki on misnomer here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer – Autoresponder Nov 21 '12 at 07:01
  • This intercourse is rather fascinating to watch... – J.R. Nov 21 '12 at 09:18
  • @BillFranke - "Improper" is a moral judgment, but it's not my moral judgment. This process occurs with the society regards something as improper. When I was younger, people whose job it was to walk women to their cars at night would describe themselves as "escorts". I'm guessing they don't do that any more. – Michael Lorton Nov 26 '12 at 19:57
  • Yes, the default meaning of the noun escort's changed, so using it doesn't work well unless one wants to make a statement about the escort & the escorted. Language is amoral, but people are, statistically, normally moralistic. Even heinous criminals have the nerve to judge the acts of others as good & bad. Words matter, but not everyone cares that they do, & even some of those who do care don't understand why they matter, nor do they always understand what words matter in every context, but I suppose that no one can be that prescient. Many words are best left unspoken & unwritten. –  Nov 26 '12 at 22:13

2 Answers2

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That is the opposite of euphemism. Not the opposite meaning, but the opposite dynamics - not substituting a term but allowing the meaning of a term to deteriorate.

Euphemism - substituting a gentler word to describe an unpleasant situation or environment.

Anti-euphemism - the deteriorated association of a term due to its usual and persistent usage.

What I am thinking are the words dysphemism - deteriorated reputation, and pejoration, having a few modes of dynamics:

  1. Pejoration - a word having gone thro deterioration and applying that deteriorated word pejoratively (e.g. retard, unique, the n-word, the fag-word)
  2. Pejoration - an euphemism evolving into dysphemism, due to basic unpleasant application of the word (e.g. toilet)
  3. using an immutably unpleasant word pejoratively (e.g. You are full of sh!t)

Examples of dysphemistic deterioration (i.e., pejoration) of words:

  • The word toilet in American English. Toilet was meant to be an euphemism for a smelly room because "toilet" actually means "dressing room".

    Hence, "You smell like a toilet." Perhaps, one day we will witness the pejoration of the meaning of the phrase "You smell like a bathroom" in American English.

  • The boy has unique qualities. Retarded children. - these used to be pleasant euphemism, but their use have deteriorated due to the basic negative association society has on the subjects they describe.

Perhaps, as purported, the pejoration of the word camp-followers due to the following process

  1. Using camp-followers euphemistically to denote prostitutes.
  2. Due to the basic negative subject, the phrase camp-followers pejorates.
  3. The reversed polarity due to pejoration, the phrase is now a dysphemism.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pejoration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pejoration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism

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Blessed Geek
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  • +1 Interesting stuff. I'm not sure I understand your example of unique and retarded. Were they pleasant euphemisms? – coleopterist Nov 21 '12 at 03:59
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    If you are older than 60, retarded would be an euphemism during the days of your childhood. "Unique" has been used pejoratively in the recent decade. – Blessed Geek Nov 21 '12 at 04:04
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    Children of retarded development used to he a way to pleasantly describe certain children. – Blessed Geek Nov 21 '12 at 04:07
  • @BlessedGeek -- I've never heard "unique" used as an insult, but "special" is definitely trotting down the euphemism treadmill. – Michael Lorton Nov 26 '12 at 19:53
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What appears to have happened in the case of words like camp followers, gay, ejaculate, etc. is a narrowing or specialisation of their meanings.

Semantic narrowing:

"Narrowing of meaning. This happens when a word with a general meaning is by degrees applied to something much more specific. The word litter, for example, meant originally (before 1300) 'a bed,' then gradually narrowed down to 'bedding,' then to 'animals on a bedding of straw,' and finally to things scattered about, odds and ends. ... Other examples of specialization are deer, which originally had the general meaning 'animal,' girl, which meant originally 'a young person,' and meat, whose original meaning was 'food.'"

(Sol Steinmetz, Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meanings. Random House, 2008)

Semantic broadening, as it were, is referred to as semantic bleaching.

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coleopterist
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  • I can't seem to agree that narrowing or bleaching could imply taking on something that wasn't there in the first place. Worse still, something quite contrary to what was. – Kris Nov 21 '12 at 05:23
  • @Kris For example? – coleopterist Nov 21 '12 at 05:31
  • As in OP's. Originally, camp follower did not mean a prostitute. The de facto meaning today (if the argument is correct) is contrary to the original meaning. – Kris Nov 21 '12 at 05:37
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    @Kris IMO, originally camp followers referred to those who followed a camp. It then appears to have become specific to military camps with camp followers including, amongst others, prostitutes. It has since devolved to only refer to prostitutes. This fits in well with semantic narrowing. – coleopterist Nov 21 '12 at 05:48
  • It's neither narrowing nor broadening but semantic corruption. – Kris Nov 21 '12 at 06:00
  • Frank Zappa: What I think is very cynical about some rock and roll songs is the way they say "Let's make love." You ought to be able to say "Let's go f**k," but ... to get on the radio. This creates a semantic corruption (of the) word "love" in the song. http://books.google.com/books?id=uAYfqgGf4yYC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=semantic+corruption&source=bl&ots=VI6wjP0BWO&sig=iPu5nj1QOyJ8LAr6AyKnjAW3qUQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dmysUO2fH4rprAfet4DgCQ&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBQ – Kris Nov 21 '12 at 06:01