> > > Last I checked, "geek" meant "freak," as in
> > > sideshow-type.
> >
> > That's what I always hear people say it means, kind of in the same way that "gay means happy", but I personally have never heard anyone say it and mean that; I've only heard it said meaning, roughly, "nerd but worse".
>
> Ooh, this is one of my pet hates: people who believe every meaning of every word in the language was fixed for all eternity, possibly by God, as if the fact that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD now uses the word to mean something else does not indicate that this is the correct meaning.
>
> Words mean what the majority of people in that country or region believe they mean. REGARDLESS of what it says in a dictionary which may have been printed twenty years ago, two years ago, or even yesterday. Anything else is etymology, not correct usage.
>
> "Gay" is the obvious example, but there are lots of others, and I've seen every one of 'em mentioned in letters to the editor by indignant weirdos who get all self-righteous about improper word usage.
>
> Brunnen-"uh ... just like I'm doing now. Darn."G
>

For most of my life, gay meant happy. Then the meaning changed. There is a synomym for the modern use of "gay" that meant odd or strange, but that has changed too. Now I am hearing the word "rule" changing to mean something entirely different from what it meant a few years ago. People used to say, "I am unhappy." But now it is "I am so not happy." Yep, the language keeps changing.
Howard