Under a Gibbous Moon

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

That is probably my favorite quote from H. P. Lovecraft. It is because, I have found, that enough disparate experiences are pondered upon you will inevitably arrive at interesting results.

And so, begins my tale.

Recently, I was watching my daughter at play. She slobbering on her stuffed animals and throwing things, as 7 month olds are wont to do, when she decided that she had had enough of that and she reached over to grab her pacifier. It was then that I began thinking about the object itself. Particularly how my mother, and damn near everyone else I have met, insists upon calling it a binky (whatever the hell that is).

As I was told, this is because the word pacifier has fallen out of vogue. Apparently, the pacification of children is just plain wrong (as opposed to their binkification). This further led me back to a discussion that I had with a special ed major back in, oh say, 2002.

I was told that the word special was being phased from the curriculum and being replaced by the word exceptional. The reason given, is that special was derogatory and akin to calling them retarded.

In language, words have both denotations and connotations. Denotations are the words literal definition while connotations are meanings that we, as a culture, attach to words. For example, if you were going out for a walk, would you prefer to be described as trudging through the park or strolling?

This cultural attachment of meaning makes this cat and mouse game with words fruitless.

We call them retarded until that’s deemed offensive, then its on to special until that is considered demeaning and now its exceptional until some unknown date when that too becomes offensive. Special did not suddenly change its definition, merely that its use to describe those who are developmentally challenged caused a shift in the words connotation.

It is the same with the pacifier. There are apparently those that worry that using a pacifier will somehow harm our children, so lets call it a binky. The underlying action has not changed though. We still use the object for pacification.

Language is a method to communicate concepts and ideas to one another. The word itself is far less consequential than what it is used to describe because, in that act, the word takes on the attributes of what is being described.

And, with that, I shall end with some words from William Shakespeare.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

No related posts.