Words don't mean, people mean...

Excerpted from A Word A Day Mail Issue 31:
From: Mary Brown (bmsmb@mailer.rgu.ac.uk)
Subject: anachronistic words

You were talking about words having different meanings depending upon the period of history. I remember reading that one of the first descriptions of the newly built St. Paul's cathedral in London in the early years of the eighteenth century called the new building 'amusing, awful and artificial'. Sir Christopher Wren was, however, really pleased as he knew this meant in today's terms that it was amazing, awe inspiring and artistic.

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