Connotation: the positive or negative implied meaning of a word.
Examples of connotation:
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/conndeno.html
-There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city
The use of the word “vagrants” has a negative connotation, implying that these individuals have a harmful impact on the city.
-“That wave was totally wicked!” said surfer George to his friend Lloyd.
In this context, the word “wicked” does not actually mean that the wave was sinful, but that it was an amazing wave. In this situation “wicked” has a positive connotation of an extremely thrilling experience.
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I like the example that you created. Wicked is a word that can be extreme if used in the usual way, yet it can be very powerful too when used to mean a positive thing. Good job on finding a word that has such polar meanings! :)
ReplyDeleteWords with polar meaning are funny. It is like they can't decide their identity; they have an identity crisis.
ReplyDeleteBut in all reality, words are like money. Money is deteremined by the value we put on it (not its literal value; paper is basically worthless but we still value it as our currency). The same with words. The value of the word will determine its worth to us and its meaning.
Words are also like that game telephone (where you start with one word/phrase and you tell that word to the person next to you then eventually the phrase is different). Over time words can have their meaning changed.
Chelsea: I like your comment about words only have the amount of meaning that we give them. We were talking about this today in my history class too, about how even past events have more or less meaning based on how we perceive them.
ReplyDeleteOr in Boston it can mean "awfully" or "super", as in "that movie was wicked retahded".
ReplyDelete