Vocabulary is known to change over time and with the culture. There are words that we use today that are completely different than their original definition would suggest. A prime and often used example is that Southern delight, ‘fixin’ to.’ Of course in
I’m sure years ago if someone referred to something as being “defanged”, everyone would let out a great sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” your Mother would say. “I always hated the fact that you insist upon having a snake in the house. At least now it’s not dangerous.” Now we see this term used when referring to e-mail attachments that come to our inbox and beckon our click. I’m sure there are other non-technical folks such as I that see the “defanged message” and wonder what exactly this could mean. After digging around online I have determined that it must refer to a message that has been quarantined because it is suspicious of carrying a virus. So much for vicious animals and dangerous procedures; it has now morphed into a technical term.
What about spam? Back in the day kids would come running when spam was in the kitchen. Gone are such innocent times when spam had such a delectable connotation. Now when the term spam is mentioned, people cringe in pain. “Not another e-mail trying to sell a designer watch,” says the business man, just trying to read his e-mails after hours of travel. “I can’t stand those e-mails asking me to meet some person online for a chat,” says one gal after being assaulted by another useless e-mail. Spam has been forever changed.
The web has long been stolen from the spider to become an interconnected internet galaxy. What once was a gooey group of string used by spiders for rest and relaxation is now much more technical and used by folks all over the globe. It would seem that this homonym could become confusing. Fortunately as a culture we’ve become assimilated to the double use of this word and now can easily differentiate between a spider’s habitation and the information super highway.
As our culture changes, so do our vocabulary words. The question is; are we becoming more sophisticated with our vocabulary or are words simply being shifted around into different niches of our society. It’s too easy to simply surf the net looking for topics to blog about while picking through spam to find e-mails that have been defanged by your virus detector. Maybe it’s time we shut down our computers and allow creativity to develop our vocabulary.
