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Contemplation of a word
From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
Pretty intense origin for a word which we basically use to say "That sucks," huh? When I tell you that my car battery died and you say, "I'm sorry," what you really mean is "that sucks." When I tell you my pencil tip broke, you're not distressed, wretched, or feeling worthless. You just think it sucks.
This seems to happen a lot in American English. "Literally" has gone from meaning "in the literal meaning of the word," to "in effect causing," to "with emphasis." Fetish once meant "token embued with power", then "that which you cannot achieve your goals or desires without" and now to "thing I sort of like."
We take these incredibly powerful words, and apply them in the most mundane of senses. We learned this trick from the world of advertising, where an Amazing New Technology often seems to work pretty much like all the earlier versions, although perhaps a little faster. We learn this trick from the dreamers, who claim their efforts have changed the world, when they have only changed themselves.
We learn this trick when we learn to settle for less than what our childhood dreams imagined we could be, and perhaps I am not telling you that I am sorry about your pencil tip, not apologizing for the phone call you hung up without meaning to. Perhaps it is just that I am so gorram wretched and pathetic compared to what I once thought I would become by this age, that all I can do is tell you how pitiful and empty I feel, reciting a litany of sairiz pain while pretending to listen to your worthless, wretched sorry life.
Is that really what you mean, when you say you're sorry?
Perhaps you might think about the power of the words you speak.
I certainly do.
sorry O.E. sarig "distressed, full of sorrow," from W.Gmc. *sairig-, from *sairaz "pain" (physical and mental); related to sar (see sore). Meaning "wretched, worthless, poor" first recorded mid-13c. Spelling shift from -a- to -o- by influence of sorrow. Apologetic sense (short for I'm sorry) is attested from 1834
Pretty intense origin for a word which we basically use to say "That sucks," huh? When I tell you that my car battery died and you say, "I'm sorry," what you really mean is "that sucks." When I tell you my pencil tip broke, you're not distressed, wretched, or feeling worthless. You just think it sucks.
This seems to happen a lot in American English. "Literally" has gone from meaning "in the literal meaning of the word," to "in effect causing," to "with emphasis." Fetish once meant "token embued with power", then "that which you cannot achieve your goals or desires without" and now to "thing I sort of like."
We take these incredibly powerful words, and apply them in the most mundane of senses. We learned this trick from the world of advertising, where an Amazing New Technology often seems to work pretty much like all the earlier versions, although perhaps a little faster. We learn this trick from the dreamers, who claim their efforts have changed the world, when they have only changed themselves.
We learn this trick when we learn to settle for less than what our childhood dreams imagined we could be, and perhaps I am not telling you that I am sorry about your pencil tip, not apologizing for the phone call you hung up without meaning to. Perhaps it is just that I am so gorram wretched and pathetic compared to what I once thought I would become by this age, that all I can do is tell you how pitiful and empty I feel, reciting a litany of sairiz pain while pretending to listen to your worthless, wretched sorry life.
Is that really what you mean, when you say you're sorry?
Perhaps you might think about the power of the words you speak.
I certainly do.
no subject
I fail to see the difference between changing oneself and changing the world. One necessarily affects--and is part of--the other.
This is no trick of language. The trick is the one we play on ourselves; we seem to need a smack in the face or someone else (i.e. The Big Bad Ad) to ram everything down our throats. We are amazed by very little, these days. We've opted to let everyone else pay attention for us.
[Just for the sake of playing Devil's Advocate, for the moment: "I'm sorry," and "You're sorry," have very different connotations. The former implies distress; the latter, that wretched-and-worthless bit. In either case, empathy plays a huge role,* and so, people truly experience your sairaz, though perhaps to a lesser degree. Q: Why trivialize empathy, and why spend your energy lamenting the human condition? A: Because the human condition is the human condition; your discontent is your discontent. We just can't help ourselves.]
You want words of power? Take them back. Use them. Write your own story. (Or, you know...replace "words of power" with "life and living.")
*Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas
To summarize: This is a study done using facial expressions viewed through the window of functional MRI. The study isolated a variety of facial areas (eyes, mouth, etc.) to express a series of emotions. fMRI results indicated that the same areas of the brain "light up" in response to emotion, whether imitated or observed. I like to use this as an example when I talk to my classes about how people learn music, language, etc., and why we learn to like what we like.
Also, here is a follow-up article on empathic yawning.