In Language
In Elizabethan slang, a 'fantastic' was a fop; an "improvident young gallant" who was obsessed with showy dress. The character Lucio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is described in the Dramatis Personae as a 'Fantastic'.
In popular usage, the word "fantastic" has become a casual term of approval, a synonym for "great" or "brilliant", and this has to a great extent supplanted the original meaning of the word. However, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary still lists the original meaning first, with the popular meaning listed second and described as "informal".
In Russian language, "fantastic" (rus. фантастика) is used as an umbrella term that encompasses science fiction (called "science fantastic", rus. научная фантастика, there), fantasy and other non-realistic genres.
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Both the Moral Majority, who are recycling medieval language to explain AIDS, and those ultra-leftists who attribute AIDS to some sort of conspiracy, have a clearly political analysis of the epidemic. But even if one attributes its cause to a microorganism rather than the wrath of God, or the workings of the CIA, it is clear that the way in which AIDS has been perceived, conceptualized, imagined, researched and financed makes this the most political of diseases.”
—Dennis Altman (b. 1943)
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)