Sky's introduction of 'mob' into the lexicon

[Grotug]

"Mob" in the meaning of "(large) group of monsters" has been used at least since 1999 in Everquest. It is possible that it originated in that game; if there is any yet older source, it must be Ultima online (which I never played), or possibly D&D where the specific meaning of "monster" comes from.

Is this a new meaning ? At a time when a new phenomenon needed to be named, someone used an existing term describing something similar ("the angry mob") - in the wider sense, any group of hostile individuals.

Now I dont know if Sky picked it up or re-invented it. It doesnt seem so far fetched.

I should have clarified: I am also aware of this use of mob as a group of monsters, that's why I referenced the quote from Doomworld, because that was an example of 'mob' being used how I am accustomed to seeing it: as a group of monsters. Sky uses 'mob' for a single monster. And so have other people started doing it on here. I'll try to find examples and quote them.

[Estie]

"Mob" in the meaning of "(large) group of monsters" has been used at least since 1999 in Everquest. It is possible that it originated in that game; if there is any yet older source, it must be Ultima online (which I never played), or possibly D&D where the specific meaning of "monster" comes from.

Is this a new meaning ? At a time when a new phenomenon needed to be named, someone used an existing term describing something similar ("the angry mob") - in the wider sense, any group of hostile individuals.

Now I dont know if Sky picked it up or re-invented it. It doesnt seem so far fetched.

[Selkie]

Well I'd say protest isn't a transitive verb. Language changes

[Grotug]

When I learned that language is a living, moving thing, it sorta blew my mind. I used to always think of language as this static thing that got invented and then we wrote down the words with their definitions in a book, and that book was the last word on the language; dictionaries were the Bibles of language.

I think I learned that language is a "living", changing thing from a Linguistics class I took in college. It was actually more the way in which languages change that surprised me. It's not some governing body that decides what words mean, it's the general consensus among the people who use the words. Someone starts using a word in a different way than it had been used, and if enough people start using it in that way its meaning changes within the community, and if it is widely enough adopted to the point it is clearly the expected meaning by most people, then someone writes its new meaning down in the dictionary and puts the old meaning as the secondary meaning, and then when that meaning pretty much never applies anymore it gets the archaic tag.

So, to get back to the title of this post, how does it feel, Sky, to be the prognosticator of a new word meaning?

Over on www.Doomworld.com

Rudolph said:
@Astronomical I have learned to punch or chainsaw Pinkies and Spectres in order to save ammo. It is a pretty effective tactic, unless of course you are dealing with a mob. Getting monsters to infight is also a good way to thin their ranks!

When Sky started using 'mob' to mean a shortened form of the word 'monster', I was tempted to call him out for his 'misappropriation' of the word. But something gave me pause... I'm not sure, now, what it was; I think I was curious if people would adopt his re-using of the word or if someone else would call him out on his 'misappropriation' of the word 'mob'. While I've always been a little bit irked by his new use of the word, I had to admit it was kinda cool to witness live, in real time, on a forum no less, a word go through an evolution in meaning.

Just to make myself clear, what I'm trying to say is that 'mob' is normally understood to mean a group of angry people moving as a group (kinda like the mob that stormed the Capitol building). The really interesting part of all of this is that not only has no one protested Sky's new meaning for 'mob', but recently I've been seeing other people using 'mob' on this site in the same way that Sky uses it. Fascinating! I wonder if anyone else has also noticed these changes to 'mob' over the last year on this site?