The webs best place to learn english - ENglish in NY

So many words that we use have meanings that can’t be found in the dictionary. They have private meanings that we individually ascribe to them, extra meanings which reflect our individual attitudes toward those things referred to.

            Such meanings we call “connotations,” as opposed to the denotative, derived meanings found in the dictionary. The significance of connoted meanings is reflected in the  word-association tests administered by psychologists. Not only are the choices of words we make to describe something significant, so are the connotations we ascribe to the words spoken by others.

            To one person, however, “home” is a place of warmth, comfort, and affection, a place where he might rather be than any place else. To another, “home” is a place where he hangs his hat, or “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Another might call it “something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Thurber’s classic cartoon depicts “home” as a house enveloped by a woman waiting to pounce upon the little man about to walk up the front steps.

            The first definition of “home” above is the dictionary definition, the denoted meaning, devoid of any editorializing, reflecting attitudes that the speakers have about the house in which they live. (It is disheartening to see that the words “home” and “house” have become practically synonymous in current usage.)

            We usually assume when we describe other people that the words we choose are doing the job, and if others  would listen they would get a fair picture of what we are describing. The following are paired descriptions of various individuals offered by the speakers as accurate.

            “I admire Jane. She’s so interested in other people.” “Don’t waste your admiration; she’s a busybody!”

            “Jack sure is a shrewd businessman.” “Read the small print. He’s a cheat!”

            “Your son certainly has an active imagination!” “Let’s face it. He’s a liar.”

            “Oh, just look at Jack. He’s the life of the party again.” “Yeah, as usual, he making a damned fool of himself!”

            In each case, it seems the descriptions are of two different people. How can the same person be a “shrewd businessman” and a “cheat,” “admirably interested in other people” and  a “busybody,” “the life of the party” and a “damned fool”?

            It is possible, if the descriptions portray not the person observed but the attitudes of the speakers toward that person. And that is exactly what is happening. The description does not belong to the person observed but to the speaker. We can describe someone else only through our own eyes, so to speak, and in doing so we reveal more about ourselves than we do about the person we are describing. That’s what connotations are all about. When we describe something, we do so by analogy, by making comparisons between it and something else in our experience.

            Some say we are what we eat, others that we are what we wear, but the truth probably is that we are what we have experienced. And that experience colors all that we see and say. It provides the meanings for the words we choose to speak and the meanings for the words we hear spoken by others. Thus, we are what we speak.

            As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by watchin’ and listenin.”

            So, speak, that I may see you!

     
          Bill Reynolds