We all have a designated name assigned to ourselves
right from when we were born. We had no choice as to what we would be called
for the rest of our lives, we simply had to comply to whatever our parents
desired to identify us with. I mean, I guess that’s what still happens, right?
We listen to our parents’ commands because it’s just a natural, humanistic
thing to do.
This is extremely similar to the whole “substitution of
words” scenario. I honestly couldn’t tell you who came up with “words” in the
first place, but what I can indeed say is that our ancestors didn’t just piece
together random letters and BAM—words. There absolutely was significance to eat
word, phrase, and sentence they conjured up.
So, my question is, why take away the true definition
of each word? Even the slightest change to one can cause an immense effect
toward its meaning. For instance, altering the word “stupid” to become
“exceptional” would just be absurd (Kakutani 764). Take a look at how Google
defines each:
Stupid- having or showing a great lack of
intelligence or common sense
Exceptional- unusually good; outstanding
Ummmm WHATTT?! How could we possibly substitute these
words when they have no correlation whatsoever to each other?!
Additionally, modifying “Santa Clause” to “Belfana” may
satisfy women, but anger men or children who have always grown up to know the
name, or even religious folks, since Santa Clause was created in the spirit of
St. Nicholas (Kakutani 763).
So, revising words isn’t going to fix prejudice in the
world or cease sexism, racism, etc. There are always going to be people that
object, and we cannot satisfy everyone’s needs—that would simply be impossible.
All that we are accomplishing here is taking away
the true definition of words and what makes each unique, and when it comes to
this extent, we’re destroying how “Plain English” came to be. We are killing
our history, letter by letter, and sooner or later we’re gonna need to rewrite
the dictionary.
And relating all this back to the whole parents
thing—we must follow our ancestors’ creations, whether we like it or not. They
provided us with the communication we have today and gave us what makes us
different compared to other species. Even though we don’t get to choose our
name or how words are defined, we still cannot mess with the nature of it. We
must live our lives in the path destined for us, and sooner or later we will
receive the reward of naming our own children; we will finally have the power
to make our own rules, but until that day, we must comply and live how nature
desires us to…. so just don’t mess with it.
Wow Izzy I completely agree with these ideas! I think it would be pointless to change our language, which you conveyed very well in this post!
ReplyDeleteIzzy, I loved reading your post! I completely agree that changing up words and using weird euphemisms wouldn't better society. Thanks for the insight!
ReplyDeleteIzzy, great job! I agree with you-plus it would just be too confusing and difficult at this point in time to substitute words or change them altogether (where's the sense in that?) anyway, another awesome blog!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post, Izzy, but I would like to ask you what your opinion is on the throwing around of terms like "gay" or "retarded" to describe things that are generically bad or unpleasant. Neither of those words necessarily mean bad, so we can't use the argument of correlation. Additionally, these words offend a large swath of the population, not just the small minority that you mention would "always object" in your blog. Would it be okay to legally persecute people that use these terms, since it's clearly offensive and absolutely despicable? Again, great post! I agree with you, I just want to pick your brain as to where you stand on these other issues :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback, Richard! In my opinion, we cannot completely eliminate these words from our language, since that is almost impossible and would not do solve any problems. When using a word like "gay," there can be two ways to do so, the first being to simply title oneself for who they are as a person-- so that can't be bad, right? I mean, it's one's own identity. The other way, however, is to "poke fun of" someone who does not identify him/herself with the term. In this case, the word is obviously not being used toward its intended meaning. The thing is, though, we cannot remove the word from the English language, because at that point it is abolishing how the word is supposed to be intended-- its definition. Now for words like "retarded," if we somehow alter the word to mean something else, what would be the point of that? There are always going to be others that are offensive to certain people and not to others, no matter how many "bad" words we attempt to change. It would be unfair to persecute people for using such words since at the end of the day if this were done, all of society would be persecuted. I'm not saying it's right to use words offensive to fractions of the population, but there needs to be a new approach toward the usage of such words, rather than banishing them altogether. I hope that answers your questions, and if you have others feel free to ask!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your ideas, not to mention, the response to Richard's question really helps to further your point as well! Even calling Santa "Belfana" wouldn't even appease women, I honestly just do not understand those who think modifying words will solve the world's issues. Thanks for furthering this discussion!
ReplyDelete