ARTICLE ENTRY 2: DEEPER IN MEANING

• Reflection to the article “The Meanings of a Word” by Gloria Naylor

“The Meanings of a Word” is an outstanding title according to me because words have always been an object of curiosity. Have you ever thought how and when the words came up, who invented or produced them? Why does a word means something but not something else? Or, are the both possible?

Gloria Naylor starts her essay by comparing the written word and the spoken word. She says language in written form is what makes her sanity keep in a good situation while she writes in her diaries. I could not agree her more on this statement because I keep a diary too and I think it really helps me in terms of gaining a loyal and understanding friend. When I write, I feel my brain works fast and I want to make it work even faster. I cannot hold my thoughts and I just throw them on the pages of my diary so that I can breathe and relax. Thus, sharing such an interest with the writer was my biggest motive to read her essay. However, her essay is not about diaries, written language or written words because she thinks spoken word is superior to written word. Even though she likes writing much, she accepts the fact that writing can never display the whole ideas in our minds as dialogs in spoken language can do. Spoken forms of communication are somehow more alive and vivid, so they are better at conveying the message and reality of words. She later adds that the meanings and reality of words come from the consensus, which means people and different cases are the shapers of everything about a word. The example she uses in her essay is the word nigger. Today it is known that this word should not be used to call black people. It is known to be a humiliating word. Nevertheless, Naylor does not think so and claims that nigger can actually be used positively in some contexts. She tells a story before defining the other meanings of the word “nigger”. It is a story from her childhood when one of her friends said to her that she was a nigger as she received a higher mark than her friend, which made him get angry and rude. At that time, she knew that the boy wanted to upset her, so she understood that “nigger” was a bad word although she did not know its meaning. After she told that event to her mother, she learned and remembered the other usages of that word. Thanks to this essay, I also learned these usages that do not have any bad or insulting meanings at all. For example, according to her black acquaintances and as well as she remember their conversations, if a woman calls her husband as “my nigger”, it is okay because she use this term to show her love and respect in addition to emphasize the manhood of her husband. There is also another term: trifling niggers. Trifling niggers are only used when somebody wants to neglect people who have bad habits, but this indifference in this context is not because of hate or scorning. It is just like parents’ attitude when they want to teach a lesson to their children by keeping silent. Hence, Naylor believes that words themselves are nothing. They do not have a specific meaning or they do not exist on their own. What make them meaningful and dynamic are people, memoirs and the way we insert messages into them. I think she is totally right in her thesis because it makes sense to me.

In brief, the meanings of a word can change from person to person and from situation to situation. Words are innocent in that sense because they do not have any innate meanings at first. They gain different meanings in time with the contributions of people. Some may have bad meanings and connotations like “nigger”, some may seem perfect. However, even the word “nigger” may be harmless if you know how to use it. For this reason, I think Naylor’s essay is helpful for us to have a larger perspective on interesting history of words.