Using words is a tricky business, trickier than one might expect. In our daily discourses we use verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions, all of which are placed in certain tenses, numbers, clauses, declension and cases. We do this all without much thought or effort, and though our usual conversations are filled with small vocabulary and grammatical errors, we get along just fine.
However, there is one important aspect of word usage that we use on a daily basis, which has a profound impact on how we think and express ourselves. A word’s connotation – whether it be negative, positive or somewhere in between – can have drastic consequences when it comes to how it gets used in speech, and how people view the thing or action the word represents.
Take for instance the two words “strange” and “unique,” words that could probably be synoymns of one another if it wasn’t for their opposite connotation. Unique is a word used by a lot of people to describe themselves to others, even though most of those people are ironically quite ordinary. Many of these allegedly unique people would never admit to being strange. However, isn’t it true that both words stripped of any kind of connotation mean the exact same thing – that is to stand out from others, thus making the self-described non-strange, unique person a prattling hypocrite?
Therefore, one can see how using words with a precise connotation can be quite dangerous. On a broader scale, word connotation can be used effectively to vilify people, actions and ideas. Look at communism, for instance, which was vilified to the extreme for over 50 years by the American government and media. For many people, it still carries a connotation that is downright sinister. To some, the word communism brings up an image of a demonic figure standing over a young by while he downloads free music off the Internet, or they just stupidly mistake communism with Stalinism. It was this kind of enforced mentality on the word communism that kept people needlessly terrified over a mysterious notion that they choose to learn nothing about.
If people had taken the time to learn what communism was about, they would have learned that it was an idea of an economy based on egalitarianism (positive connotation in that word) where people would work collectively for a society that wouldn’t need the wage-slavery system.
Instead of spitting every time Americans heard the word Karl Marx, they might have learned that he was not an unkempt political radical with absurd and evil notions, but a brilliant economist who spent most of his time classifying and critiquing the capitalist system.
Often, negatively ascribing such words is done to bring people together, to boost their unity and sense of patriotism. Is that in itself a positive thing? Patriotism is a word as highly valued in our country as philanthropy, and is looked upon as a grand attribute worthy of having a sports team named after it.
By loose definition, to be a good patriot, a person must follow the creed of his own people without question. But what about the creeds and ways of life of other people – how does one account for them? Does that mean that to be a good patriot, one must put him or herself on a pedestal in order to justify his actions? If this is the case, does being a good patriot also mean to be a bigot, or at least to be prejudice?
Strip a word of its popularly perceived connotation and you can whittle it down to its basic form, and judge it for the most accurate meaning. As you can see in this editorial, when this process is done, an array of questions emerges. Questions that are too mentality taxing for some to address.
In a perfect world, questioning the positive and negative emotions brought up when mentioning a particular word wouldn’t be necessary. But we live in a world where language is bent and misconstrued in dubious ways by the powers at be to deceive the minds of the people using that language. And thus, in this endless world of toil, we all must work our minds, and examine this great tool of language that we take for granted, in order not to be lead astray by it.
