I was looking at an old newspaper ... no, not from last week; from the last century: from 1900 to be precise. And I was reminded once again of the power a given word can have, depending upon its use. Or depending upon its perceived appropriateness in a given situation or time in history.
Take, for example, the word mashed. There’s nothing wrong with the word itself. It’s not a “bad” word. Mashed. Certainly there’s meaning conveyed by the single word, but it does have more meaning, more life, if you’ll pardon the expression, when used with other words. (Yes, I know, “duh,” but bear with me.) Mashed potatoes. (Yummy) Mashed sweet potatoes. (Yummier still) Mashed metal at a junkyard. (Perfectly reasonable) Mashed people. Life mashed out of a person. (NO, wait!!)
In the early twenty-first century, no respectable publication would state, in headline or in copy, that a heavy object had mashed the life out of an individual! That would certainly get attention, but at the price of angry letters to the editor and probably some from the lawyer(s) for the deceased’s family, promising a suit. However, in the early twentieth century a leading and respected newspaper in the state’s capital said just that and probably never heard a word about it. On Monticello Mountain, a certain gentleman was thrown from a lumber wagon and was then “Run Over and His Life Mashed Out.”* It certainly gets the point across, and it is not grammatically wrong, but in the present day, it would definitely not be considered appropriate, acceptable wording! In 1900 there was no problem.
“Mashed” when used with “potatoes” is a non-emotional word; “mashed” when used with “life” is, at least now, likely to stir up plenty of negative emotions and lawsuits.
*The Times, Richmond, VA, June 3, 1900, page 2, column 5.
