Articles tagged “engl-1101”

• ENGL 1101: Etymology and the Sway of Time

  ~ by Jonathan Martin

  As if 2010 was not far enough back for you, I now present a research essay from 2009 that I coauthored with my brother Joshua (so if you notice a difference in writing styles, it has nothing to do with my schizophrenia) concerning the unusual history of some common words: idea, rhetoric, tawdry, and guy.

  Flippantly Invoked Vocabulary

  In today’s culture, words tend to morph to the context in which they are most used. Over mere centuries, vocabularies with deep roots and connotations are reduced to flippantly invoked words. Words that once frolicked in lush definitions are steadily watered-down to common usage and association. As Salman Rushdie laments, “[n]ames, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit” (Rushdie). Among such words are comprised idea, rhetoric, guy, and tawdry.

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