Re: query: distorted languages?

This happens all the time, not just due to holocausts. Compare the rapid
vanishing of the word "gay" meaning anything other than "admirer of the Pet
Shop Boys." A second meaning of a word becomes so shocking or joke-inducing
that all meanings except the stigmatized one vanish.

It doesn't even have to do with the same word all the time. When was the
last time you heard someone get described as "niggardly"?