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novalis comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong
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This is because a speaker's attitude towards an object is not formed by the speaker's perception of the object; it is entirely arbitrary. Wait, no, that's not right.
And anyway, the previous use of the term "gentleman" was, in some sense, worse. Because while it had a neutral denotation ("A gentleman is any person who possesses these two qualities"), it had a non-neutral connotation.
That would be true if the word "gentle" meant the same thing then as it does now. Which it didn't
The word originally comes from the ancient (not modern) meaning of Hebrew goy: nation.
EDIT: the last statement is incorrect, see replies.
"Gentleman," "gentle" etc do not come from Hebrew.
Maybe you are thinking about the fact that "gentile" comes from the sense "someone from one of the nations (other than Israel)," just as Hebrew goy originally meant "nation" (including the nation of Israel or any other), and came to mean "someone from one of the (other) nations."
"Gentile" was formed as a calque from Hebrew.
But none of these come from a Hebrew root. Rather, they all come from the Latin gens, gentis "clan, tribe, people," thence "nation." Same root as gene, for that mater.
Right, my bad, it was translated from Hebrew, but does not come directly from it:
From your link: Sense of "gracious, kind" (now obsolete) first recorded late 13c.; that of "mild, tender" is 1550s.
This is, of course, exactly what the halo effect would predict; a word that means "good" in some context should come to mean "good" in other contexts. The same effect explains the euphemism treadmill, as a word that refers to a disfavored group is treated as an insult.
You can make it correct but still informative by replacing “originally comes from” with “was originally a calque of”.