Summary Of The Meaning Of A Word By Gloria Naylor

Dahal 1

Ram Dahal

Professor. Mary Wood

English Composition II

March 25, 2016 Arbitraries of words Language is an ocean of words where there are many diamonds as well as venomous serpents. Words have the same depth like an ocean. It depends on how the word is poured down to others. Gloria Naylor, in her essay, “The meaning of a word” describes language as a subject. We know subject is anything that is generally discussed or dealt with. So Naylor wants to say the language is a thing where it has lots of meaning and perceptions. She writes her own personal experience clarifying how a language could be misleading and misinterpreted. She writes her own experience and tries to convince

But the sentiments is clearly understood when the same word is spoken. Her statement provides a reader a clue about the strength of any word. When we listen to some rap songs we encounter lots of vulgar words. They seem so misleading if the word is acknowledged with dictionary meaning. But in reality there is nothing intentional with the singer. The word is uttered just to make a rhyme and make the song more beautiful. So, it can be generalized that anything that matters in choosing the word is how the listeners take it about the tone of the speaker. When someone smiles and calls his friend “freak” then he is just making a fun of him. But the same word if spoken in serious tone misleads the listener and make him think, “Am I really a freak?” There are lots of evidences to prove that there are many meanings of a single word. In many Hollywood movies, “Son of a bitch” is frequently spoken. Here, what does ‘bitch’ mean? Is it the female dog? Or it is a prostitute? But there is nothing to do with the meaning of a bitch to the listener. The listener simply thinks that he/she is really very angry. So we can say that everything that matters is how a listeners take the speaker’s word and its meaningful