Last night a friend of ours proposed that we re-jigger the word "metal" to approximate ye olden worde "rad," as in "that's totally metal news, dude!"

If this happened, would that be a neg --> pos, a pos --> pos, or a neut --> pos?

Also: does sarcasm count? As in a young 'un calling something a bit too birkenstocky for his or her state "groovy"?

(you know, with withering sarcasm in her tone)

We seem to be unsure if inspiring awe is a good thing or a bad thing. "Terrific" has, as you say, moved toward the good, while "awful," "terrible," and "dreadful" have moved toward the exclusively bad, and one shade of meaning of "fear" is almost entirely ignored, except in contexts of fearing god.

Outside that, the only good-to-bad word I can think of is "silly" (originally meaning innocent or blessed).

I am going to amuse myself by blaming it all on capitalism. You need to get attention for your product, and so you want a new, exciting word. You don't care so much about what words actually mean--you just need something that sounds big, powerful, new. So when you grab your new word, you're going to use it to mean "good." You may not even know what it really means: you're in sales, remember.

I think it's bound to happen to "fulsome" eventually.

These discussions are gonna make me look stupid.

The only thing I can think of is a cousin of the phenomenon you're talking about - sinister. But that's a move across languages and across a greater timespan than you mean.

Terry's points about terrific/terrible and awesome/awful are interesting.

Officious?

Does 'suck' count as having gone from positive to negative?

"Awesome" is another word I originally thought of in this regard, and then forgot about -- originally meaning awe-inspiring (with all of the attendant ambiguity), now typically meaning "great."

And "awe-full"/"awful" is a great counterexample, Terry.

Did "officious" once mean good things? I'll have to hit the OED at home.

You do that. I personally will be hitting the 'sauce.'

According to the RHCD (Random House College Dictionary), the obsolete meaning of officious is "ready and willing to serve." Not unlike the sauce, actually.

I have dim memories that there is a chapter in "The Power of Babel" by John McWhorter that addresses just why more words shift towards more positive meanings, but specifics escape me. I can't really recommend the book either, as it wasn't satisfyingly information dense, rather more like a series of lectures typed up. Not without high points, but in the end more of a slog than it should have been.

Oh yeah - "French."

Hmm. Fleabitten, pockmarked, scatterbrained, unctious, rank, and maladroit have always been bad.
Howsabout "Republican"?

I was reading about the Italian word for left "sinestro" as having the same devious background as our left-handed (compliment, etc.) and having the same base as the English word "sinister."

Reminds me of the section in X (Malcom, is in Spike Lee) when they look up "white" and "black" in the dictionary to note the nefarious nature of things dark versus the cleanliness and wholesomeness of the light.

Must suck to be a left-handed black etymologist.

I was reading about the Italian word for left "sinestro" as having the same devious background as our left-handed (compliment, etc.) and having the same base as the English word "sinister."

Reminds me of the section in X (Malcom, is in Spike Lee) when they look up "white" and "black" in the dictionary to note the nefarious nature of things dark versus the cleanliness and wholesomeness of the light.

Must suck to be a left-handed black etymologist.

I was reading about the Italian word for left "sinestro" as having the same devious background as our left-handed (compliment, etc.) and having the same base as the English word "sinister."

Reminds me of the section in X (Malcom, is in Spike Lee) when they look up "white" and "black" in the dictionary to note the nefarious nature of things dark versus the cleanliness and wholesomeness of the light.

Must suck to be a left-handed black etymologist.

teenidol was reading about the Italian word for left "sinestro" as having the same devious background as our left-handed (compliment, etc.) and having the same base as the English word "sinister."

Reminds him of the section in X (Malcom, is in Spike Lee) when they look up "white" and "black" in the dictionary to note the nefarious nature of things dark versus the cleanliness and wholesomeness of the light.

He feels it must suck to be a left-handed black etymologist.

Sorry about that. I just saw that Dominoe's commercial with the people saying everything 3 times.

And when I said "it must suck" -- is that a positive suck or a negative suck?

On a different note, I see B&N sells this great title: A Million Random Digits With 100,000 Normal Deviates http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=iM4q4LpAdM&isbn=0833030477 but I gots to give Amazon some cred for having the peek inside feature:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0833030477/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-4152158-8759338#reader-link

I just couldn't believe they followed 24210 with 36699. A great read!

now, if I was checking the web on friday the 21st of January instead of conferencing in New Orleans, I would have raised the issue of the way words used to describe stigmatized groups often become stigmatized too (turning to bad). Thus, many former terms for African-Americans fall into this category. On the plus side, such groups have recently sought to reclaim some stigmatized words ("queer" is the example that comes easiest to mind) and try to turn them back to positive in an empowering way.