It is not always possible to find the exact description: for different generations the same term easily changes its meaning to the opposite. As a result, grandchildren and grandmothers in a word describe completely different phenomena and fall into a stupor, having heard an unusual interpretation. Have you ever heard that the air in a dry crypt is chilly? This unexpected definition is considered traditional, albeit obsolete.
Classical Decryption
The term under study was previously used even in relation to cucumbers lying in a barrel! Because they said so about things that were excessively damp, right up to the appearance of rot. A similar epithet was fixed for everything that is characteristic of rotten things: the smell or air, in which a specific aroma spreads, also became dank. The most understandable synonyms for contemporaries will be:
More often the word appeared in the speech of people of noble origin. Against this background, “rotten” was considered a colloquial expression used by people of the peasant class. But why in the 21st century can the original definition be rejected and called incorrect? What has changed over several centuries?
Weather talk
It's all about the language norm. An additional interpretation, which today has become the main one, is also based on dampness. When it rains heavily, clothes, hay, rooms in a poorly heated house instantly damp. They begin to deteriorate and smell faster, as if in a poorly ventilated basement. Even despite the piercing wind and freshness outside the windows, people transferred the meaning of the word “dank” to the weather as its description. The substitution took place in stages:
food spoils; clothing smells;
this was due to high humidity;
it became wet due to prolonged downpours;
hence, weather and mustiness are identical.
The defining word was “damp”. The more it is, the better the adjective is suitable for naming the rampage. Or to indicate the length of time in which the situation is most uncomfortable for the speaker on the street.
Dialogs in the office
We are not talking about illiteracy, it just became natural in society to pronounce the words “rotten” and “rotten”, and as a result, capacious descriptions completely replaced the polite, pompous. Discussing upcoming vacations or excessive summer heat with colleagues is normal. As well as declaring that on this dank day it would be better to stay out at home with rheumatism than to suffer for a quarterly report. Today, the word is used solely to describe weather phenomena. If you say so about something with rotten, those around you simply will not understand!