When Webster compiled his dictionary, it was considered prescriptive. It was considered ... get this ... defining. "This word means" meant "This is how you're supposed to mean it." Of course, not in our day. Dictionaries are no longer definitive; they're descriptive. "What do people mean by that word? Write that down." The epitome of this kind of dictionary is the Urban Dictionary. No, don't look it up. It's entirely user-driven, primarily about slang terms, and very often offensive. Because "That's how I use it" becomes the definition rather than a definition that tells you what the word means.
So, here we are. Post-modernism gave us the Humpty-Dumpty world where words mean exactly what you choose them to mean. In a glaring example in recent years, a Christian writer argued that our relationship with God should be sexual. When taken to task by other Christians, she answered, "Even Jonathan Edwards believed this. He often wrote about intercourse with God." Sigh. Not what he meant. So, today we've shortened "sexual intercourse" (which has its own specific meaning) to "intercourse" (originally "connection," "interaction," or "exchange") and eliminated every other normal definition of the word. No, dear lady. Not the same thing. But that's how it works. Take a term, redefine it at will, then reinsert it where it used to be and see what fun/damage you can cause.
So we take "love," respin it to "warm feelings" and, frankly "sex," and reapply it to "love God" and "love your neighbor" and now it's something different. We grab "justice," add our nuanced "as we see it," and hand it back ... to God and everyone else. "No justice, no peace" changes entirely to "If you don't do what I want, expect war." That includes God.
So, we become our own dictionaries -- each an individual one -- where we define words as we see fit. Maybe there is some agreement, maybe there isn't, but we rarely even think about it. "I used the word and you used the word, so clearly we agree it means what I meant." A modern Babel. We become the standard for our own language and then require everyone else to submit to it. Like when we eliminate God as the standard, substitute our own, and then require everyone else to submit to it. Not effective. Not even helpful.
6 comments:
While I totally agree that we aren't just talking about how meanings change slightly over time and through usage, but about a much more concerted attempt to fill old words with new meanings, I think it's bigger.
I think you're right that the shift is to a postmodern worldview, but that shift isn't just about definitions, but about the existence of Truth. If there's no Truth, then word definitions become essentially fluid and meaningless.
You're right. Postmodernism STARTS with the premise that truth is relative.
"Our own standards". Pretty much sums up how the culture operates, doesn't it? And some will wonder about why we're so divided! This is one reason: some of us adhere to long-held understanding, while the rest have rejected it all in favor of something more convenient, advantageous and/or exculpatory.
All very biblical. "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25) Of course, God isn't in favor. "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel." (Prov 12:15) and "Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts." (Prov 21:2)
I'll be prudish enough not to type the word, but in pre-1960 fiction you will see sentences like----
"We've got to get out of here right now!" he _______ed.
Writers now exclusively reserve that for a meaning involving male sexual performance.
It is astounding to me how much of our language has been subverted to sexual connotation. I was having the tires changed on my car once, sitting the waiting room, when an attractive woman came in and asked to have her tires rotated. As she left, I heard one of the guys behind the counter tell the other one, "I'd rotate her tires." What does that even mean? But we were all pretty sure what he meant.
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