Old Word, New Meaning

English is my first language. I think learning English any other way would be very difficult. There are countless inconsistencies in the rules of spelling, and the meanings of many of the words keep changing.

I recently heard a phrase that was new to me, yet I knew exactly what it meant without explanation, which left me feeling curious. The words were, “I’m cooked. I’m cooked!” My first clue was the obvious desperation in which it was spoken, but I think there was more to it than that.

At first, I thought it was because of the relationship "cooked" has to other similar words in my vocabulary: 1. "fried" (as in mentally exhausted), “Please don’t ask me any questions because I’m fried.” 2. "burnt" (short for burnt out), “Since I’m kind of burnt, can we eat in tonight?” 3. "toast" (as in finished/done for), “Sorry, Bud, but I think your pet frog is toast.”

Another possible reason the phrase "I'm cooked" made sense to me is because of my familiarity with the phrase "your goose is cooked."

As of right now, the definition of "cooked" with the meaning "done for/generally struggling" does not appear in the online Webster’s dictionary, but it can be found in other dictionaries that give definitions of slang words. However, Webster’s does define the phrase "to cook one's goose."

I talked to my teenage son about the use of the word cooked and he revealed that if someone is cooking that they are doing really well.

Huh.

I guess this does make sense, in a way, because even those of us who are cooking are going to eventually be cooked. That’s just life. Upon checking, the Webster's dictionary does have the definition of cooking that is mentioned above. Whether or not the meaning of cooked that my son uses while gaming will end up there as well, only time will tell.

Speaking of meanings of words that change when switching from present tense to past tense (or the other way around), the sentence above about the frog is a quote that was once uttered by my friend to his son. The boy then told his mom, "Dad said my frog got toasted." Even though things don't end well for the frog whether it is toasted or just toast, we have to admit that these two phrases don’t mean the same thing.

I do wonder: as our language keeps expanding, how many new meanings will we be able to hold in our memory?