As an admitted wordsmith, writer, and teacher of writing, grammar, and vocabulary, I'm into words in a big way. Words are to me as tools are to a carpenter, pots and pans to a cook, and cows to a rancher.
I am aware that words have shifted meanings over the centuries. It's hard to know what words once meant, compared to what they mean today. I'm sure there's a legitimate reason for the change.
In other words, if this were a history lesson, I would discuss the re-working of “awful,” “presently,” and “peer.” For the sake of my fellow-lexophiles, “awful” once meant full of awe (not terrible), “presently” meant in the future (not the present), and “peer” as someone in the social strata above you (not at the same level as you).
Then there are the broken rules, with texting being a good (or bad?) example--so “are you” becomes r u). Or when a new meaning is applied (eg., a “six-pack” morphs from being a small case of beer to some hunk's muscular abdomen). Does that mean if you drink too many six-packs yours becomes a one-pack? Confusing, I know, but don't blame me.
My main thrust today is about those other words whose meanings have shifted simply for the sake of convenience. Some have taken such a shift that I hesitate using them for fear of misusing them, then having some twit out there snickering—and I hate being snickered at.
Remember, for instance, when “gay” used to mean happy? It means anything but happy today. You will recall when “cool” once meant not warm. Someday I should write about the shift in the meanings of “hot,” and “chill.”
A few other words come to mind as I write this missive. These are hot-button words, loaded words, politically-correct words. My complaint is that words have shifted meaning for apparently no rationale reason. Bad enough to create confusion (the opposite of clear communication), but for those who don't embrace the new meaning, they are considered social outcasts or moral pariahs.
For instance, I remember when I was once able to use the words “boy” and “girl,” and everyone knew what I meant. Boys always dressed like boys, acted like boys, and went into the boys' bathroom. Not so any longer in certain circles. The same applies to girls.
Another word that's taken a beating is “absolutes.” We can no longer hold to absolutes apparently—and we've been told that in absolute terms. There's a serious flaw in that camp, whereby those who claim we can no longer be absolute about anything anymore...state it absolutely. If absolute doesn't mean rigid, firm, and definite, then don't ream me out rigidly, firmly, and definitely. That's called a double standard; worse, it's called hypocrisy.
Whatever happened to my next word, namely, “tolerance”? Tolerance used to mean allowing for differences, putting up with opinions and viewpoints opposed to your own. I think I've done my fare share all my life. However, today I must “tolerate” certain lifestyles, habits, and vices, but notice how those who demand tolerance of me are, well, not very tolerant of my view, if it's different from theirs. Hypocritically, tolerance seems to go only one way.
Worse yet, I hear how we must be tolerant of each other and allowing for differing views (repeated for effect, thank you), but then it stops when it comes to same basic moral issues. In fact, I am seen as an enemy of the state for having a differing view.
Have you thought of the shift in the meaning of “choice”? The term “pro-choice” apparently means balanced, wise, and selective. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. It simply means to choose to kill a helpless baby, conceived by selfish, unrestrained sex. The correct term is pro-death. Even writing this term should get a few people upset (which is not my intention), but it is the correct term. Sugarcoating it with fancy talk doesn't change the meaning behind the message.
So, when it comes to absolutes, tolerance, and choice, it appears their current use goes only one way—the opposite direction, you might say, from all civil, rational thought. By adjusting the meaning, moral imbalance and ambivalence becomes the norm.
The list is endless, or at least so it seems, so I must wind up. One more word: “friends.” Thirty years ago, friends were people you felt safe with, dropped your guard with, got deeper with—usually in person and over coffee.
These days we can have 200 “friends” on Facebook. There are some noble uses of Facebook (quick dissemination of news, for one). But equating folks who make regular, shallow comments on a computer as “friends” is a stretch. Not sure I want to be friends with those who spend inordinate amounts of time hanging out over a computer screen.
So what do you think, wasn't this a “swell” column?
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