Word Diminishing

Words tend to diminish with overuse. This is obvious. The broader and more frequent its use in society, the quicker it falls out of its original meaning. This is one of the many reasons we need to diversify our linguistic capabilities.

On a small scale, take the word “like;” we use it colloquially as a sort of filler word, worsening in intensity as you move down through the younger generations. We do it so often now it’s hardly noticeable, and the word “like” essentially means nothing. There are many problems with this trend, largely untreatable, but the one I’m going to focus on in this post is the degradation of the word’s significance.

The one example that immediately comes to my mind is the word “epic.” Epic used to be a legitimately powerful word, held back to only describe the largest and most impressive events or situations. But through continued abuse in everyday speech and internet memes, the word “epic” is now only a shadow of what it once was. Use the word “epic,” and most people will only equate it with some kind of loose positivity.

As with the word “awesome,” and I’m very guilty of abusing this. People use the word “awesome” to designate anything that’s remotely pleasing. “Awesome” should be reserved for things that are truly capable of inciting awe. But it gets thrown around like “like,” to the point where its power is lost.

That’s why I think sometimes it would be nice to have word thresholds, in order to preserve the natural power of a word’s original meaning. People would be limited in the number of times they could use a certain word in a certain day. It might create some conflicts with Freedom of Speech, but damn it, our language would be far more significant.