The Origins of the word FLIRT

One of the enduring great things about language is that it is in a continuous state of change. The words we use every day are relentlessly evolving and shape-shifting, broadening and specialising, adjusting and reworking themselves from one decade to the next. At times, these changes can seem fairly predictable. Take the word Computer, for instance. Derived from the verb Compute (which in turn has its roots in a Latin word meaning 'to reckon'), when it first emerged in the 1600's it quite literally meant someone employed to perform calculations and computations. Technology progresses and by the turn of the 19th Century a computer was a mechanical device used for complex calculations and from there the reference to an electronic computer emerged in 1946.