How “weird” went from meaning “fate” to describing your fridge
"Weird" is a weird word
The word “weird” is so common we barely notice it, but a thousand years ago its ancestor, the Old English “wyrd,” meant “fate” or “destiny” and haunted the bleakest poetry of the era. This article traces how a word for the inexorable logic of the universe became a casual label for everyday oddities, from its survival in Scots to its near-disappearance, and the pivotal role of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” a typo, and the Romantic poets in shaping its modern meaning.
“Wyrd is totally inexorable.” — The Wanderer
- xg15
Gives Terry Pratchett's "Wyrd Sisters" a whole new layer of meaning. The man knew his language history, apparently.
Also interesting you can see the influences of Old English on German as well:
> Wyrd comes from the same root as the verb weorþan, pronounced roughly WEAR-than, which meant ‘to happen’ or ‘become’.
"werden" is literally "to become" in modern German. The connection to "wyrd" is a bit more tenuous, but "wird" does also mean "will (be)", so there might be some common root here.
- bhk
The increase in usage in the latter half of the 20th century is interesting to me, because I recall being surprised in elementary school that "weird" was a dictionary word. I thought it was informal slang among kids, having associated its usage not with adults but with those my age, who generally found its sound amusing.
- alephnan
The word for a word that describes itself is autological
- jll29
Engl. "weird" (happen, to become) ~ German "werden" (will [be]).
Regarding irregularity of the English language, there's the well-known urban poem:
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, fa […]
- toss1
In an otherwise idle moment some time ago, I for some reason started pondering what we really meant when we said/wrote something was "weird", as it seemed an odd word and not really as defined as it seemed.
The closest solution I came up with was "weird" is used to describe something we really don't quite understand, don't "get", or "doesn't compute".
Since then, I've found it fits quite well in most situations and haven't found any better explanation. Even seems not misaligned with this article. Anyone else have better thoughts?