The Nature of the Linguistic Sign

I don't know if I am understanding the article correctly but it continually refers to language and sign as being arbitrary. Which I think would mean that language is chosen at random? I don't think that it means that we just wake up one day and chose to call a tree a car, but rather that as language evolves it changes, subtly. There are many examples of words that are derived from Latin or Greek to mean one thing but in English mean something entirely different. An example in the text is the Latin word "necare" meaning "to Kill" but the French version is "noyer" which means "to drown". (pg. 10) Changes in language can occur in translation, but I guess also through time and pop culture our language and they way we use words can change from one generation to the next. My grandfather years ago complaint to me that the paperboy said his house looked "sick". My grandfather was confused but took it as something negative, some kind of weird insult. I told him it was a compliment. How can one word mean two totally different things?

Oh and just for kicks I looked up sick at www.urbandictionary.com and this is the first definition:


1.
sick

1)crazy, cool, insane 2)what one is on a test day
1)man, that trick was sick yo 2)i played sick on my big bio test day

A little outdated but still funny.