Hey everyone! Hope your week has been good or tolerable at least :)
My first entry would be about the word POPINJAY!
Honestly I have never heard of the word before till someone tweeted about it and at first I thought it meant a dance move or something like 'pop n lock' or someone's crazy name. According to the Free Online Dictionary, it means...
popinjay [ˈpɒpɪnˌdʒeɪ]
n
1. a conceited, foppish, or excessively talkative person
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Animals) an archaic word for parrot
3. (Individual Sports & Recreations / Archery) the figure of a parrot used as a target
[C13 papeniai, from Old French papegay a parrot, from Spanish papagayo, from Arabic babaghā]
Is it just me or does popinjay not exactly give off any negative vibe when said? If it's meaning has evolved into something carrying a negative connotation, why does it sound so cheerful and fun? Although the meaning is related to the irritating characteristics of a parrot, the way the word sounds does not exactly correlate. Perhaps this is the reason why this word has not caught on, the way the pronunciation of the word does not evoke the same negative meaning as what it really is, making it hard for people to retain the word in their lexicon.
-jeannette
