Words And Their Implied Meanings Essay, Research Paper

Words and Their Implied Meanings

Would you rather belong to the “Apple Dumpling Gang” or the “Crypts”?

The connotation of the word gang reaches “hit an all time low” in the 1990’s.

We envision today’s gang members as drug lords who kill each other on street

corners. Society rejects and imprisons them. Once members of a “gang” simply

shared common interests and enjoyed social acceptance, much as members of a club

today. Many pairs of words have experienced a similar disagreement in

connotation throughout the years.

The term “revolutionary” currently enjoys more social acceptance than

terrorist. The mind-set of a revolutionary thinks he/she must change a

horrific aspect of society by forcing a break-down in government. In the mind

of a terrorist he/she must alter an aspect of society he deplores in society by

bombings, hijackings, and assassinations. The United States’ history makes us

sympathetic to revolutionaries because the war between America and the British.

No books refer to it as the American Terrorism because terrorism connotes

anarchy and a lack of social structure. The actual difference in strategy

between the two groups may appear more gentle, however, they both kill.

Regarding the words “gang” and “club” only one denotes violence. The

dictionary defines gang as, “A group of persons working together; a group of

persons having informal and usual close social relations.” The definition of a

club reads as follows, “An association of persons for some common object usually

jointly supported and meeting periodically.” Hidden beneath each definition,

lies a more subjective, personal definition lodged in each of our minds. Why

must society negatively characterize gangs and positively characterize clubs?

We now associate the word “gang” with group of juvenile delinquents who create

disturbances with violence and misconduct. Commonly, society associates, the

word “club” with a positive environment where young people can have positive

role models in their lives who support them. Unfortunately gangs correspond

with corruption and clubs equate with honor. Maybe we can solve the gang

problem by getting them to join clubs.

Yet another combination of words similarly defined, yet with a very

different application in everyday life include “religion” and “cult.” Every

religion on Earth has at one time had the status of a cult, According to

Webester’s dictionary a cult has one major characteristic, “A system of

religious belief and ritual.” A religion too has a single distinct quality,

“Commitment or devotion to a deity, faith or observance.” Unfortunate, In

today’s world, a cult will send you to eternal damnation while religion will

save you from it. With deeper analysis, one might contrive that religion

controls the masses about people with propaganda and messages of Satan whereas

cults teach the true voice of God that evade many people who remain unaware of

the desired spiritual effects.

Thus, many pairs of words like “gang and club” and “religion and cult”

that once possessed similar meanings have experienced a divergence in actual

application. One way to more accurately defines words might involve publishing

new dictionaries for each year, so libraries would discard superseded editors.

Dictionaries could be created for people of different regions, different

backgrounds, different philosophies, different occupations, and different biases.

Could we each publish our own dictionaries perhaps?