You know, a sudden thought hit me. Your Spanish friends can't understand it? Mine neither. They also can't understand why so many english drink so much and get shitface drunk in the street.

Perhaps both items are the product of the national psyche, and brits are prone to this kind of behaviour.

When the word "respect" is used by the gansta element, it actually means the person is feared, people show "respect" because they are afraid not to.

In some cases, quite so.

I bet people showed 'respec' to the Krays.

Exactly Ron and Reg could go a bit OTT if the felt peeved with folk showing them too little respect.

I personally would have "respect for a polite man, but even more "respect" for him if he was polite and toting a gun.

Back in th'old days, you had to show seriou respec' to you betters. failing to doff your cap could be fatal. In times, these gestures of submission became things like handshakes, bows, and so on.

http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning/respect/

Respect does have quite a broad meaning, possibly even broader now than ever before.
I prefer to think of it in the most kindly terms such as due regard, consideration, care and decency towards fellow men.
Respect your elders, nothing wrong with that in my book as long as the respect is returned.
Respect your employer, once again the same thing applies providing the respect is returned.
However as you point out, it can wrongly in my view be used in a very one sided way.
Much the same applies with todays gang mentallity where the leader of the gang is shown respect or rival gangs expect respect.
Sadly in my view, in such instances the word "fear" could equally be used to replace the word respect.

Words change.

Do you know what nice really means?

Nice,
"Foolish; silly; simple; ignorant; also, weak; effeminate."

Two meanings apparently, though I can't ever recall hearing it being used it those senses.

Though occasionally in a sarcastic manner meaning the exact opposite to the more common meaning

Has anyone used 'pleasant' and 'kind'
I believe it's also used to mean precise, even to the point of nitpicking. But I haven't looked it up so I'm not sure.

Bingo. The original meaning was precise. A 'nice decision' meant a precise, carefully considered and accuate one.

Words change.

Originally if a group were decimated, it meant 10% dead. Now people take it to mean 90% dead.

People say they were involved in a near miss, when actually they were involved in a near hit. If you nearly hit something you miss it.

Quick. Give me a highly inflammable liquid.




















Bet you said petrol. But petrol is flammable.

Water is inflammable

Given the schizoid nature of and sheer volume of posts from him,
it appears he already has been.

You know, it's quite indicative. People agree to get on with the thread, ignore the friction, quit with attacking people, and debate the points, and what do we get, A tired scribbler, aggie and now you, all three dripping venom, and unable to let it go.

Can all three of you forget you petty personal grievances, your tired spite and just move on.

The rest of us have.

My Dad used to get really rattled about misuse of the English language and I must admit some of it has rubbed off on me. My brother, who now lives in Germany, writes instruction leaflets for sound engineers and has started using new American forms of words and it irritates me. I know I should get up to date. But I will never...ever accept 'misunderestimated' (George W Bush)

I used to be like that (probably still am if truth were known!), but I kept being told that English is an evolving language so how can 'anything be wrong'?

If it's in common usage then it must be correct?!!

And yes, due to the popularity of American, children's programs (oops, programmes), more American words and spellings are drifting in.

My children (who now have 4 languages - Spanish, Valencia, English and American) talk about elevators, side-walks, gas for the cars etc. etc.

Ahhh, George Duh-bya Bush. Our link to the 15th century. His sayings are collected together somewhere. My favourite was "Seldom is the question asked. Is our children learning?"

There are hundreds like that, and it was postulated that his appearance as a dullard with poor language skills made good would strike a chord with the average Republican voter.

Using good grammar and correct punctuation is to treat the reader with politeness. I don't mind that the language changes, even if I feel that some of the changes are inelegant and inaccurate, that's life.

I tend to think that a lot of the changes will just wither on the vine as the group that use it will also change.

I do hate it tho when people can't cope with simple basic stuff like an apostrophe. That's like not knowing what a comma is for.