Words Mean Things
An article running on Slate today makes the case that “no means no”:
“The problem is not one of nomenclature. Words signify concepts and “no” still signals the concept of non-consent, for 100 percent of the world’s English-speaking population, 100 percent of the time.”
The author is reminding us that, while convention and context can influence meaning, the primary meaning of a word is usually not more complicated than what you read in a dictionary. Additionally, the author is reminding us that ethical people respect words and their precise meanings. This is my favorite rant about semantics; words mean things.
On the other hand, it’s true that convention, context, and other factorscan influence meaning. But this does not mean we are free fromour moral obligation to use words properly;it simply means we have to take extra care withcertain words. One of these factors is connotation bleed, withhomonyms and words with multiple meaning being one interesting case. For example, “words mean things” is not so far from “words; mean things”. In this case, potential connotation bleed might not work in our favor. We usually try to use connotation bleed when it strengthens our desired meaning. For example, I could say “the proposal is imprecise”, but would be better to say “the proposal lacks precision”, since “lax” ishomonym for “lacks” and happens to trigger a set of associated connotations that strengthen the desired message. Even beyond homonyms, there are plenty of other words that affect similar connotation bleed based onsound similarity and fuzziness in the mind of the listener.