Sunday, April 25, 2010
KNOW WHEN TO HOLD THEM !
"The worst thing is holding on to someone who doesn’t want to be held on to".~UNKNOWN
Thursday, April 22, 2010
WORDS CAN HURT!
For the last 10 years of my life I have been fascinated by semantic change aka the way a word’s meaning and connotations (feelings toward a word) change overtime. I am also amazed by the way Hip Hop music influences not just music and fashion but more importantly language . In this 3 part essay I will attempt to uncover the origins of a few words that particularly invoke intense emotions such as retard, gay, n***a, bitch and hoe.
First I’ll give a brief introduction to the most common types and forms of semantic change; generalization, specialization, pejoration, amelioration. Generalization occurs when a word’s meaning/definition expands to include new concepts i.e. platea or place used to mean broad street but due to semantic change in then included particular cities areas. Specialization occurs when a word’s meaning/definition lessens to fewer concepts i.e. meat use to mean any type of food gradually began to mean the flesh of animals, but not fish.
Amelioration occurs when a word’s meaning improves, resulting in the word defining something more favorable i.e. from the 13th century – 20th century the word retarded meant to impede or slow down a development and the slang term referred to an autistic person, but recently things have changed. In the 21st century the emergence and influence of the Hyphy (subgenre bay area rap music) retarded, dumb and stupid have become synonymous with a desirable behavior i.e. dancing and driving carelessly or erratically. Viloent behavior is also attributed to going dumb, stupid or retarded!
The next form of semantic change is pejoration. Pejoration occurs when a word’s meaning degenerates, resulting in the word defining something less favorable i.e. the word gay. In the 17th century gay meant merry or happy but, due to some people being overtly merry, merry became wanton and finally when people were being overtly wanton, wanton became gay.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
PEACE!!!1
First I’ll give a brief introduction to the most common types and forms of semantic change; generalization, specialization, pejoration, amelioration. Generalization occurs when a word’s meaning/definition expands to include new concepts i.e. platea or place used to mean broad street but due to semantic change in then included particular cities areas. Specialization occurs when a word’s meaning/definition lessens to fewer concepts i.e. meat use to mean any type of food gradually began to mean the flesh of animals, but not fish.
Amelioration occurs when a word’s meaning improves, resulting in the word defining something more favorable i.e. from the 13th century – 20th century the word retarded meant to impede or slow down a development and the slang term referred to an autistic person, but recently things have changed. In the 21st century the emergence and influence of the Hyphy (subgenre bay area rap music) retarded, dumb and stupid have become synonymous with a desirable behavior i.e. dancing and driving carelessly or erratically. Viloent behavior is also attributed to going dumb, stupid or retarded!
The next form of semantic change is pejoration. Pejoration occurs when a word’s meaning degenerates, resulting in the word defining something less favorable i.e. the word gay. In the 17th century gay meant merry or happy but, due to some people being overtly merry, merry became wanton and finally when people were being overtly wanton, wanton became gay.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
PEACE!!!1
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