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Boston is a wicked cool town. It鈥檚 got the wicked awesome Red Sox and a wicked hard marathon and wicked fun swan boats in the Frog Pond at the Common, and, according to Urban Dictionary, it is the place where use of the word wicked as an adverb was born.

With that change, says linguistics major Emma Brown, came new meaning. Originally, wicked meant 鈥榚vil or morally wrong鈥� as in, 鈥淏y the pricking of my thumbs,听Something wicked this way comes.鈥� The Bostonian usage, which Brown says spread through New England, has the term standing in for 鈥榬eally鈥� and 鈥榲ery.鈥�

Fascinated with words and the way their use and implication can vary, Brown decided to make 鈥榳icked鈥� the subject of her research project for 91制片厂鈥檚 2014 Undergraduate Research Conference. She titled it, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 wicked intense: The grammaticalization of 鈥榳icked鈥� as an intensifier.鈥�

Historically, Brown says, New England was all one dialect, separated into regions. Eastern New England speech was non-rhoticity鈥攖he dropping of Rs following vowels. So, car became 鈥榗ah;鈥� park, 鈥榩ahk.鈥� New Hampshire followed suit, evolving to sound like Boston. Using wicked to mean 鈥榬eally鈥� or 鈥榚xtremely鈥� goes back to Eastern New England dialect.

鈥淲icked isn鈥檛 used to mean evil as much anymore; it鈥檚 used as a booster,鈥� Brown says. (A booster, like an intensifier, is an adverb that strengthens or amplifies another word, typically an adjective.)

In her research, Brown looked at whether 鈥榳icked鈥� has undergone grammaticalization, the process of a word shifting from its original meaning and taking on new context.

An example is the word very. "It鈥檚 one of the oldest intensifiers; you can study its use over a hundred years,鈥� says Brown, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. 鈥淰ery used to mean truthfully. Now we use it as a booster. The same thing has happened with wicked.鈥�

Brown鈥檚 research had her listening to the interviews of 44 people conducted by students in a socio-linguistics class to find intensifiable speech phrases. She found wicked was used as an intensifier 30 times; for example, "It was wicked hot out," "That professor is wicked hard." She also studied Twitter feeds to see how often wicked showed up, searching users by location, subject and keyword. She let the search run for three hours.

鈥淲icked came up more than 5,000 times,鈥� Brown says.

But some of those mentions were in retweets. Some were in song lyrics. She threw those out, along with song titles and references to the musical 鈥淲icked鈥� and found the word was used 1,500 times.

鈥淚t confirmed my spoken word research, 鈥淏rown says, adding, 鈥淣ew England speakers would say 鈥楾hat鈥檚 wicked cool鈥� while in other parts of the world, they鈥檇 say, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 cool.鈥欌��

Leading her to conclude that yes, wicked has undergone wicked grammaticalization. Less formal research revealed the use of wicked as a adjective: "Those are some wicked potholes."

And there is Brown鈥檚 own experience, from childhood, of the geographical impact on language.

鈥淚 remember when I was little, around 5 or 6 years old, we鈥檇 go to visit relatives in Ohio and when I used the word 鈥榳icked鈥� around my cousin, saying something was wicked cool, and she鈥檇 tell me I couldn鈥檛 say that because it was a bad word,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 said 鈥榃hat are you talking about, it鈥檚 just a word.鈥� It鈥檚 interesting how different perceptions can be. Wicked is one of those that stands out because it鈥檚 such a regional stereotype.鈥�

鈥淟anguage changes,鈥� Brown says. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 use the same language we did 20 years ago. Some people say it鈥檚 due to misuse. Some say it鈥檚 culture. Either way, it continues to evolve.鈥�