maneth985 reblogged your post:always a little torn between âlanguage evolves and...
Okay maybe Iâm having some reading comprehension issues here but what do you mean by that?
basically like. there are certain terms (Iâm thinking right now about âcrack shipâ but there are definitely ones that are more serious) that shift meaning over time due to usage changes, and from a descriptive viewpoint that means that the meaning changes as the usage does. i.e. the usage supersedes the meaning.
but thereâs also...at a certain point with that meaning slippage comes a loss of meaning and often a coincident dilution of specificity. Iâve talked before about my frustration over this with âproblematic.â It had a meaning once upon a time, and a useful one, which was the one I originally learned in an academic context - meaning basically âthorny, knotty, difficult, requires unpacking.â The current usage of it to refer to âthing that is badâ has become so broad and vague that it is, imo, effectively meaningless.Â
Iâve seen this come up with âmansplainingâ as well, where people talk about it being used well outside the original parameters (for instance, a long conversation in which someone was arguing that a woman can mansplain, which I would argue is a usage that fundamentally dilutes the meaning of a useful word that was coined to talk about a specific interaction with a specific, gendered, power dynamic.
