Don’t throw away words because of arbitrary connotations

Connotation, to me, is one of the most intriguing and important words in the English language.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of connotation is: an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its meaning. The reason this fascinates me is because it is a word that admits that some definitions are intangible. Sure, you can always define a word, but what that word means as far as a feeling is different from person to person and even from society to society.

As a society we let connotations of words change over time and this can even sometimes lead to changes of accepted definitions. This is a scary phenomenon. The way we feel about a word can change our language.

I am fearful that this will happen with the word feminism. Merriam-Webster defines feminism as: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. To me this is a no-brainer — of course a mere chance difference in genetical makeup should not drastically affect your rights and opportunities. Yet as a society we have let this word take on other connotations. Many people won’t call themselves a feminist because of the connotation attached to it.

This concerns me. I’ve honestly heard people that think that men and women should have equal rights refuse to define themselves as a feminist. That clearly isn’t a refusal of the dictionary definition, but a flaw in the connotation of the word.

As a society we should look to reverse this. The fact that every person, or at least every woman, wouldn’t call themselves a feminist to me doesn’t demonstrate a belief in inequality, but a hesitance towards a word that is somehow not universally socially accepted. If you want to change a connotation think hard about the definition.

This happens with other words as well, whether they simply get a negative feel for it or the word becomes slang for something else. Because of flawed connotations, political issues, faiths and social stances lead to divisions in people. These divisions are often unfounded.

This may seem like an odd thing to harp on, but in my opinion language is one of the most important things we can talk about. After all it is the base for all communication. The next time you decide your opinion on one of these charged words to think about the intended and actual definition rather than the emotional definition you may have arbitrarily developed.

—Jeffrey is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in religious studies. For the record, yes he calls himself a feminist. You can reach him at dahdahjm@gmail.com or on twitter @dahdahjeff.