That's because calling an idiot an idiot plainly is apparently considered uncouth and attracts downvotes, flags and downvotes often mean oblivion. In fact you will find do-gooders chome in with "be civil" but you flip the word and it's all kosher. The thing is all of us do and say idiotic things. So that makes a bit tricky indeed.
reply> in the future being called a "genius" will always be seen as pejorative.
If you are not a genius and someone calls you a genius, well, for you the future is already here, genius! (Shit I didn't really mean that :P)
I don't think the definition is changing at all. To me, we've just lost the ability to comprehend sarcasm.
replyThere should be a name for this style of speech, using "good" to mean "bad".
replyIrony? Camp? “genius is a camp - so good that it’s bad”. “In the sentence ‘this is the sh1t’, ‘sh1t’ is camp - so bad that it is good”.
replySemantic inversion or contronym
replySarcasm
replyThere’s a lot of this in African-American vernacular. I’m not exactly sure what a “bad bitch” means but I believe it means attractive whore, but does it or does it just mean a good woman? Either way that’s two traditionally negative terms that seem to be used positively.
replyjust like 'Nimrod' becoming an insult
replyOr "dunce."
replyGenius take!
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