Words Have Definitions—Duh!
In the age of technology and quick access to information, I should not have to remind people that words have definitions. Are you unsure of what a word means? Pull out your phone and look it up! I remember a time (my generation’s version of back in my day) when we would have to search books for definitions. These books were called dictionaries. My vocabulary assignments usually involved me using a dictionary to discover what a word meant. When words had more than one definition (this happens, it depends on how the word is used), we got to play a little game learning about how to apply the definition that made the most sense in context of the sentence or assignment.
(Context is extremely important and a whole other blog post)
Basically, as a child, I was taught how to read, write, and understand the English language. I was also taught how to use the dictionary. Definitions were sourced and found in the dictionary. Occasionally, we had slang words, like sick, which actually meant that something was cool or awesome. But nobody was trying to change the definition of the word sick, we understood context clues to figure out if we were dealing with slang words or literal definitions. (Hey, this is where understanding figurative language can help!)
I cannot place where the change happened but it doesn’t take a genius to know that a change has happened. In society today, we can’t define something as simple as woman. I wish this was hyperbole. There are plenty of videos on Instagram of people being asked what a woman is, some stumble, some claim they cannot answer it, some try to answer it with political correctness and then there are others who straight up said that they don’t know.
Definitions do not play the political correctness game. Words have meaning, they have definitions. Words and their meanings are facts. We cannot change a meaning of a word based on our feelings.
That’s actually the whole point of figurative language. It’s a way to use words to convey different meaning, create analogies and comparisons, or even bring some color to the English language. However, using words through figurative language does not change the definition of the word. That’s how figurative language has meaning and works—because we understand the definitions of words, when they are used outside of their definition we see understanding and sometimes a fuller picture.
Like when Jesus tells us that anybody who is angry at their brother commits murder in their heart. That is a paraphrase and some exaggeration on my end. I feel like this is a paraphrase that most of the Christian community uses. The verse in the Bible says (Matthew 5:21-22)“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be answerable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court…
Being angry with your brother is being compared to murder, would still be answerable to the court. This comparison gives insight, the paraphrase of the words of Jesus, gives a fuller picture. It gives more understanding. Murder is defined as the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person. Jesus is actually evaluating the understanding of anger, not redefining and trivializing the external act of murder.
In today’s society though, we’re faced with words being invented and redefined almost daily. Cultural definitions used to only apply to slang. Now, cultural definitions are held in a higher standard to actual, factual definitions. We live in a society where truth has become flexible and “well that’s my truth” is a widely acceptable argument.
Why though? Why have we allowed this? Why are we okay with redefining truth?
Truth is defined as: the body of real things, events, and facts.
That is not the embodiment of truth today. Truth has become skewed. Real things, events, and facts are all up for interpretation now. Interpretation through social media, through public opinion, through influencers. We have the court of public opinion that decides truth based on interpretation of facts. How many things have happened online and we all have an opinion that we treat as fact because of how the information was presented to us?
I could go on and on but if you have been paying attention to anything lately, you know what I am talking about. You know “fact-checks” are not really fact-checks. We know that the Biden administration pressured Meta to silence what they deemed as “misinformation.”
Misinformation is defined as: incorrect or misleading information.
Some of us might be saying duh to that definition. It’s very self-explanatory. I will ask you though, do you know what the definition of information is? Without looking it up, that is. Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you. Information is defined as knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction.The definition goes on to say that intelligence, news, facts, and data are all classified as information.
However, with the media, we are seeing a dismissal of facts based on whether or not they fit a narrative. Let’s take a look at what narrative means.
Facts have become less important to an overall narrative. Definitions have become less important to what words are meaning to society or people.
How do I know? There are people walking around claiming to be a woman who do not fit the definition of a woman.
That might boarder on a slippery slope fallacy, but if that is true and someone can change the definition of a word that has factual meaning, because they feel like they are what they claim, how is it not true for anything else?
Taking it out of the realm of controversial topics and something someone might consider decisive—let’s look at Christianity.
People are self-affirming or self—proclaiming Christians yet they don’t hold the Bible as the word of God. There are alarming stats on “Christians” that don’t follow what the Bible says, let alone believe that it is true.
This Christianity point is a blog post for another day. The point is, words have definitions. Words have factual meaning. We cannot allow society and emotions to change the definitions of facts.
If we do that, what meaning does anything have?
“Definitions matter and words matter because communication and understanding matters.”
Why is this important to writers? Words are how we communicate! When we are writing and sharing stories and using words to reach our readers, we have to make sure they are understanding our meaning. We have to make sure that we’re all clear on what words mean and what we are trying to say. We cannot be in a world with the same words but different dictionaries. Everybody would be lost and confused.
Photo by Leighann Blackwood on Unsplash