Semantic Bleaching: how words become less awesome

Words tend to lose intensity over time in a phenomenon known as semantic bleaching. (Its opposite being semantic strengthening.) Weird? Incredible? Awesome? These words didn't used to mean quite what the mean today.

Hosted by Dr. Erica Brozovsky, Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.

Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.