TooCurious
Kitten with a ball of string
- Aug 10, 2003
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Though it's not my intention to stir the semantic waters unnecessarily, I'm interested enough in linguistics that this discussion has piqued my interest.
It seems to me that the issue of referring to homosexuality as a perversion is an issue of connotation vs. denotation. The dictionary definition of the word, the denotation, as we have discussed, is simply "that which deviates from the norm," to paraphrase. However, in common usage, the word carries a connotation, an implied meaning, beyond its dictionary definition: "something wrong or disgusting."
Many words have connotations above and beyond the literal meaning which they denote. I might hypothesize that this "corruption" of meaning is how the language evolves. If this is the case, dictionaries would likely experience some lag in keeping up with usage, in part due to the prevalence of prescriptive linguistics in some academic circles. (I'll admit, I'm something of a prescriptive linguist myself; it's my intuition that there should be a "right way" to use a word.
)
Regardless, if my hypothesis regarding the evolution of language and the gradual change in word meaning over time is correct, then while at the moment the meaning denoted by the word "perversion" may accurately apply to homosexuality (i.e. that it deviates from the norm), over time the denoted meaning of the word "perversion" may evolve to reflect the word's connotations,--which, it seems to me, are often intended instead of the word's dictionary definition by people who may not be fully informed of its literal meaning--and truly come to denote "something wrong or disgusting," which I feel would not accurately apply to homosexuality. And that really should have been more than one sentence, but it's almost 3am and I'm reasonably certain that it was vaguely grammatically correct.
It seems to me that the issue of referring to homosexuality as a perversion is an issue of connotation vs. denotation. The dictionary definition of the word, the denotation, as we have discussed, is simply "that which deviates from the norm," to paraphrase. However, in common usage, the word carries a connotation, an implied meaning, beyond its dictionary definition: "something wrong or disgusting."
Many words have connotations above and beyond the literal meaning which they denote. I might hypothesize that this "corruption" of meaning is how the language evolves. If this is the case, dictionaries would likely experience some lag in keeping up with usage, in part due to the prevalence of prescriptive linguistics in some academic circles. (I'll admit, I'm something of a prescriptive linguist myself; it's my intuition that there should be a "right way" to use a word.
Regardless, if my hypothesis regarding the evolution of language and the gradual change in word meaning over time is correct, then while at the moment the meaning denoted by the word "perversion" may accurately apply to homosexuality (i.e. that it deviates from the norm), over time the denoted meaning of the word "perversion" may evolve to reflect the word's connotations,--which, it seems to me, are often intended instead of the word's dictionary definition by people who may not be fully informed of its literal meaning--and truly come to denote "something wrong or disgusting," which I feel would not accurately apply to homosexuality. And that really should have been more than one sentence, but it's almost 3am and I'm reasonably certain that it was vaguely grammatically correct.
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