That surprised me! When did that change happen?
I used the word egregious in conversation today, and my listener was surprised. So I looked it up for interest, to check my use of the term, and to my amazement I found the definitions shown at the top of this blog post. How about that! I wonder when the meaning changed?
Well, I set up the compost bin today, and I’ll seed it with worms next week. Photo by FitOldDog.
I guess word-related ideas change all the time: eggs good for your health -> eggs bad for your arteries -> eggs good for your health, and so forth. But words, and their related concepts, are a critical mind compost, relating in fascinating ways to our emotions based on their use previously in our lives, and to our ability to reason. The fine tuning of Semantics makes for more precise thinking, it would appear, which is why I look up words from time to time. I look them up even when I THINK I know what they mean; in fact, especially when I think that I know what they mean. I call this my fertilizer for the mind, and I need fertilizer for my body and garden, as well.
Fertilizer for my body: body awareness training, to improve my movement skills, joint stability, balance, flexibility, and all the things that aging seems determined to degrade. But starting over from time to time is a critical for real improvement. Which brings me to my winter training plan. As a result of my lovely bike wreck last year, my hip was displaced, then fixed by an Osteopath, and my training, especially my running, was severely degraded. 
I have no interest in hobbling marathons in Ironman races, so it is time to reset my training. I’m dropping the Beach to Battleship Ironman (sadly), and setting up my winter training from scratch. It pays to start over from time to time, whatever your skill level. I became psyched about fixing my running again as I watched the recent Marathon record-setting run on the Better Movement Blog. Time to go back to basics.
Fertilizer for my garden: in the case of my vegetable garden, I don’t have to go back to basics as it is completely new, with virgin, but not lively, soil. I’m working on needed preparation, with the assistance of compost, with the aid of worms (on their way, by USPS), bacteria (from a bag), the weather, and soil analysis to correct mineral imbalances.
Yep! Life is good! Sure wish I could run like those Kenyans. Then again, I bet I can swim faster than they can! Always appreciate your own strengths, and admire the talents of others.
English is a living language and word meanings are constantly evolving. I love words like uncouth. We have lost couth but the opposite remains. Denounce, announce pronounce must all stand no longer aided by the long gone nounce. There is a sort of survival of the most fit going on with these noises we make.
I remember hearing a comedy show on the radio, years ago. A crook lost his girlfriend, because she said he was uncouth. The rest of the show, which was pretty funny, had the crook directing his gang to find some couth to get his girlfriend back. That was about 50 years ago, and until your comment I had not encountered couth again. Yes, the grunts and squeaks of our verbal memes are subject to natural selection, like most things.