It's always interesting to learn about a word whose connotation has changed over time, especially when the change was radical. This is the story of innovation, as told by Jill Lepore in a New Yorker piece on "disruptive innovation."
The word “innovate”—to make new—used to have chiefly negative connotations: it signified excessive novelty, without purpose or end. Edmund Burke called the French Revolution a “revolt of innovation”; Federalists declared themselves to be “enemies to innovation.” George Washington, on his deathbed, was said to have uttered these words: “Beware of innovation in politics.” Noah Webster warned in his dictionary, in 1828, “It is often dangerous to innovate on the customs of a nation.”
The redemption of innovation began in 1939, when the economist Joseph Schumpeter, in his landmark study of business cycles, used the word to mean bringing new products to market, a usage that spread slowly, and only in the specialized literatures of economics and business.…“Innovation” began to seep beyond specialized literatures in the nineteen-nineties, and gained ubiquity only after 9/11. One measure: between 2011 and 2014, Time, the Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Forbes, and even Better Homes and Gardens published special “innovation” issues—the modern equivalents of what, a century ago, were known as “sketches of men of progress.”
Lepore goes on to explain that the attention innovation's garnered — not to mention a cementing of its newly-positive spin — stems from the popularity of the phrase "disruptive innovation." This phrase can also be credited for the bad-to-good transformation disruption is experiencing, one our own Nancy Friedman remarked on after Hurricane Sandy.
The headlines were full of "disruption" last week, as Superstorm Sandy ravaged the East Coast. "Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Millions of Lives" read the headline on a New York Times slide show. Sandy "continues to disrupt New York entertainment industry," CBS News warned a day after the storm passed through. Subway, train, and air travel was disrupted, as was phone and cable service, and there was even concern that power outages would disrupt voting in today's election.
I followed the storm from the opposite coast, not far from Silicon Valley, and as I read the headlines and stared in astonishment at the photos I suddenly thought about the very different meaning "disruption" has in the worlds of business and technology. It's a meaning that's relatively new but highly influential and — unlike the Sandy-caused disruptions — almost always positive.…
How did "disruption" become a good thing? It didn't start out that way. Historically, "disruption" has been a pejorative term: a disruptive pupil would be sent to the principal's office; stock-market disruptions may cause widespread panic. The word, which comes from Latin disrumpere, literally means "breaking apart"; dictionary synonyms include "disorder," "confusion," and "tumult."
Friedman goes on to chart disruption's path to business buzzword celebrity, but we'll stop here to ask the question: Which of today's words with negative connotations might sound good to our ears in the future? Will future generations crave stress? Praise a new luxury item's uselessness? Will carelessness be hailed by educators as a 22nd century skill?
What do you think? We'd like to know. Post your comments or "least likely to succeed" contenders for words primed to make an about-face shift from bad to good. (Points for humor and creativity.)