I’ve heard it explained that “hey” used to be more of an urgent way to get someone’s attention, rather than a casual “hello” like it is now, so it sounded rude to some older folks.
I’ve heard it explained that “hey” used to be more of an urgent way to get someone’s attention, rather than a casual “hello” like it is now, so it sounded rude to some older folks.
I think it’s a pretty good example of something that totally lost all meaning and got beat into the ground, rather than getting worked into some individual lexicon or accent, and having a specific kind of role.
Totally passing observation on top of that, but I think, it’s probably much easier for that to happen to specific references, than for that to happen to actual novel uses of language.