Terrific
Here’s a slightly strange inconsistency you may have noticed:
- Horror: bad. Terror: bad.
- Horrible: bad. Terrible: bad.
- Horrify: bad. Terrify: bad.
- Horrific: bad. Terrific: good. Wut?
So I investigated, and it turns out that “terrific” underwent the same melioration process that words like “sick” did in the last few years. Originally, “terrific” (from the Latin terrere “to fill with fear” + facere “to make”) had the same sense you would expect from the analogies above. It gradually moved from that sense to a sense of “frightening by virtue of its great magnitude” and then simply “of great magnitude”; for example “a terrific achievement”. The evolution here then parallels the word “great”, originally just meaning “large” and then gaining a sense of “excellent”. Why the same thing didn’t happen to “horrific” or “terrifying” is one of those things we’ll just have to attribute to human languages being full of mess and oddities.
I was with you up until your example. A “terrific headache” is a bad headache, so while I appreciate the attempt to have it mean “magnitude”, I think another example is in order.
Jamie
April 22, 2010 at 13:57
OK, I changed it to “terrific achievement”.
thinkdifferent767
April 23, 2010 at 01:12
Woot. Sorry, for some reason my comment sounds very pretentious and snotty. :/
Jamie
April 23, 2010 at 01:38