We should be well used by now to familiar words taking on entirely different meanings. Even so, anorak has taken many of us by surprise. How did it leap from being an ubiquitous waterproof, hooded jacket to being someone who bores us rigid?

The answer lies on the campus. Though various attempts have been made to glamorise the anorak it has never really succeeded in becoming a fashion statement. All that can be said of it as a fashion garment is that it was never quite as bad as the duffel and nowhere near as bad as the shell suit.

The anorak, like the duffel coat before it, has its uses as a utilitarian garment to keep out the cold and sometimes the rain, depending on just how hard it is trying to achieve the status of high fashion. As such, the anorak properly belongs on a windswept hillside or seashore, but is seen everywhere, although thankfully not as frequently as formerly, and over a wide variety of garments - from T-shirt to dinner jacket.

Returning to the groves of academe we find that anoraks were once particularly popular with students, being functional, informal, adaptable, easy to wear and often relatively cheap. The anorak became a kind of uniform for students, not only on the university campus but in the school playground.

It was this that was its undoing. When

just about everyone was anorak-clad the trendsetters began to look elsewhere for their outward upper garments. Those who persisted in wearing the anorak were consigned first to the ranks of the unfashionable and then to the ranks of the boring and severely limited. No wonder our Foreign Secretary found it necessary publicly to deny that he had sported a green anorak at his wedding ceremony.

In the 1980s students began to use the word anorak not only to describe the type of jacket still favoured by such bores but also to describe the bores themselves. It took a while for this meaning to leave the seclusion of the lecture rooms, but it gradually began to infiltrate the high street. Now it is practically impossible to use the word anorak without arousing sniggers.

The anorak is now considered to be the uniform of the acknowledged bore in much the same way that the dirty raincoat is considered to be the uniform of the flasher. So closely associated with bore now is anorak that the bore need not necessarily be wearing such a garment in order to be given the title of anorak.

He need only be the kind of person that someone would consider likely to wear an anorak. Indeed, by this stage in anorak's history the bore may have no obvious connection with the anorak at all. He just needs to be the kind of person whose reputation for boredom and dullness is beyond dispute - at least in certain circles.

I have not used the pronoun he out of a lack of political correctness nor indeed out of a spirit of sexism or female chauvinism. I'm just bowing to the facts of linguistic usage for anorak, in the sense of bore, is widely held to be most frequently associated with the male of the species.

If you are inclined to doubt me, look no further than The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, published by Bloomsbury. There the compiler Tony Thorne defines anorak thus: ''An unfashionable, studious or tedious person, usually a young male.''

The male connection seems to be still current, but I have to take issue with Thorne on the youth issue. Anoraks are just as likely to be middle-aged or elderly. Indeed, older bores tend to be more boring as they have had more practice.

What a fate has befallen anorak - first an unfortunate fashion accessory, now the curse of the listening classes. The sad thing is that there was nothing in its background to suggest this was to be its fate.

Both the word and the concept have their origins in Greenland. The Origins of Everyday Things, published by Reader's Digest, gives us a potted history of anorak: ''The Inuit made a type of waterproof hooded coat from strips of seal intestine or from seal or reindeer skin; this was known as a parka in the Aleutian Islands and an anoraq in Greenland.'' Such a garment is unlikely to make it to the catwalk but at least it was essential to a way of life. Anorak probably wishes that it had never left home.

Chance plays such an important role in life and I cannot help feeling that anorak was just unlucky. Other items of clothing might just as easily have become associated with tedium and become synonyms for bore, but it was left to anorak to draw the short straw.

The cardigan, as worn by the male and probably knitted by his mother, is just as likely to be a companion of bores as anorak is. Then there are sandals, especially as worn with brown woollen socks. Indeed, I personally feel that sandal conjures up a much more appropriate picture of a certain kind of male bore than does poor old anorak.

Perhaps boredom requires a more all-over image than simply footwear. If so, other garments for the upper torso could be in danger of acquiring associations with tedium, since garments for the nether regions tend to have more basic connections. Barbour is an obvious contender. There's a lot of them about and several of them are on the backs of known bores.

fashion statements

how anoraks have been pulled on in The Herald recently

l A party of Jack the Ripper fanatics reckon they should polish off their pints and hit the road for Norwich, to join up with fellow anoraks

l When we started this service two years ago, the Internet was still largely being used by computer nerds and anoraks

l The politician they once called ''anorak man'' has long shed the anorak image, and now regularly sports a sharp suit and tie and a heavy wool overcoat

l This might be the sort of esoteric debate beloved of anoraks and teeny policy wonks

l Cool Britannia has arrived on Horseguards Parade in the shape of four, silver, inflated pouffes round a central hall. The construction, which looks rather like a discarded anorak, is the result of powerhouse::uk

l They should be sent to that blasted heath on a wet Sunday with anoraks and maps to argue the toss to their hearts' content