People have been sharing ‘perfectly normal words ruined by the internet’ – 27 striking (and occasionally very funny) examples

It’s only natural that in the evolution of any language, words will change their meaning over time. As you surely won’t need reminding, it’s called – Google, Google – semantic change.

But we wonder if the pace of change has speeded up in the age of the internet.

Why are we blathering on like this? Because Redditor Nearby-Simple-7594 just asked this.

‘What perfectly normal word has been ruined by the internet?’

And it prompted lots of interesting (and occasionally very funny) responses. Here are our 27 favourites.

1.

‘The term “hack”. For example, “These life hacks will BLOW your mind!!!” No they won’t, five minute crafts.’
Marie_Robbins

2.

‘I’m a surveyor. Depending on where you work, a lot of your job is hammering in stakes, or “pegs”. If you’re marking out exploration drill holes, roads, and other stuff then you can spend hours or days hammering in, flagging and labelling the f-cking things.

‘The act of hammering in wooden stakes is often called “pegging”.’
rawker86

3.

‘Related – with string instruments (and other instruments I’m sure but I just know strings), the placement and ordering of what fingers you use to play notes is referred to as “fingering”.’
zzaannsebar

4.

‘Not a word but a name, Karen <- i am not a westerner but i feel bad for anyone whos name is karen and has to take all the jokes.’
Environmental_Comb45

5.

‘Daddy has too much sexual connotation now.’
Ar1st0cr4t1c

6.

‘Triggered. This was a term describing when the victim of severe psychological damage was exposed to stimulus causing them to not just remember, but actually re-experience the moment the trauma occured. Now it’s used to describe being upset with something.’
ArghNooo

7.

‘Facial.’
Informal_Laugh_4221

.
8.

‘Not a word but OCD.

‘Omg I like stuff organized this thing that is 2 millimeters off is triggering my OCD!!!!!

‘You don’t have OCD, TikTok girl. You’re a normal human and like things organized.’
Xyphyn

9.

‘Amazon used to be a river in South America.’
Altruistic-Editor111

10.

‘Windows used to be holes in the walls.’
Excellent-Prior-4312

11.

‘Porn.

‘Earthporn Foodporn Spaceporn

‘We get it. You wanna f-ck all the stuff.’
theinnocenthostage

12.

‘Meta.’
shwarpy

13.

‘Spam.’
NicNoletree

14.

“Epic”

‘Overuse of the word “epic” diminishes the gravity of the word. Please stop.’
okunlolao