Negotiated meanings (Off-Topic)

by Robot Chickens, Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 13:08 (3279 days ago) @ naturl selexion

Sorry I ducked out of the conversation yesterday. I didn't mean to post and run, but Iconic was right in his interpretation of my statement that you just can't claim to be more precise in this case.

Who is doing the negotiating of the meanings of words? Probably the people that write them and the people that enjoy reading or listening to them. Those who entertain are in the forefront. Those that inform, not so much.

The up side to this is that despite the hyperbole, young people are in general smarter and better informed than ever. At some point the constant exaggeration is going to lose it's appeal and people will value straight talk and not respond to ridiculousness.

The thing is, language is much more like an evolving species than a frozen system of static rules. Yeah, the rules help give form, and words can't mean anything we want them to, but they do change and in order to communicate well, we have to be able to understand how they are used in other people's discourse. With regard to the News, hyperbole certainly works for a while, but then people become inoculated and learn not to trust certain types of language use. The source of words matters in our interpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean that the word's meaning is lost, but it does mean that when that word comes from a particular source it may mean something different.

I also don't think that valuing 'straight talk' implies a return to certain forms and meanings. Some words will be forever transformed by media use. New words or old words with new meanings can be employed in straight talk. It has much more to do with the source or genre of information than the actual words themselves.