Did you know the meaning of a word may change over time? Many English words we know now had different meanings a long time ago. One example is the word “nice”.
Around the year 1300, “nice” was first used in English to mean “stupid”. Two hundred years later, “nice” began to carry a “better” meaning. If people said a book was written “nicely”, they meant the book was written “clearly” or “carefully”，not “stupidly”. After 1800, “nice” began to take its meaning like “kind” or “friendly”. Since then，people have thought of “nice” as a word with good meanings.
A good change of a word’s meaning like this example of “nice” is called AMELIORATION. Though we don’t use nice to mean “stupid” any more, it is fun to know how much a word’s meaning can change from its start!
For more examples of AMELIORATION，see next page.
39. 1300 years ago, a “nice person” was believed to be ______.
A. careful B. friendly C. stupid D. clever
40. What is the second paragraph mainly about?
A. What nice used to mean. B. Why the meaning of nice changed.
C. How long nice has been used. D. How the meaning of nice changed over time.
41. AMELIORATION means a word’s meaning _______.
A. can change from its start B. changes from bad to good
C. changes from good to bad D. remains the same over a long time
42. Which of the following is most likely to appear on the next page?
A. The word“terrific”used to mean “terrible”, but now it means “excellent”.
B. The word“silly”used to mean “happy”, but now it means “stupid”.
C. You may wonder why a word’s meaning changes over time.
D. Besides AMELl0RATION, a word’s meaning may change in other ways.