Philosophy of Language

I took a class in college, a 400 level course, about the philosophy of language.  It was, without a doubt, the most difficult English class I've ever had to take, but it is the one that I reference most often when talking about literature and society.  The biggest problem for me was simply getting outside of my own head.  The teacher told us that "you don't think language, language thinks you."  Our language is the sum of years of social development and it changes all the time.  There are connotations to words that we simply know because we were taught them; spoon fed to us with our Gerber's every second of every day of our lives. 

The best example the professor gave was the phrase "you throw like a girl."  It's an insult, we all know it's an insult, but how do we know it?  There's only one word in that whole phrase that makes it an insult.  The connotations around the word, "girl," were already built in when we learned it.  Do a little word association with yourself and list the top-ten things that come to mind when someone says, "woman."  Now with the word, "man."  I can almost guarantee that you have two very different lists.  Take a look at those top-ten words, what connotations do they have?  Is this because every woman, or every man, you've ever met has exhibited those exact ten characteristics?  Probably not.  It will be based on your own personal history as well as that of our society.

The same goes for any word in our language.  Have you ever asked yourself why a curse word is bad?  Why is it a curse word in the first place?  Why isn't "hand" or "bottle" a bad word?  Because of the meaning that has been assigned to them.  To borrow from Shakespeare, and an overused example, does calling a rose by any other name change what it physically is?  No, but one could not put a different word in that sentence and have it mean exactly the same thing.  The point will be the same, but there will be a whole different set of images and experience called to mind.  Try the word, "foot," for example.  Now that sentence may not be as pleasant.

Which brings me to this Huckleberry Finn issue I overheard on the radio at lunch.  I've already written about it on my book blog and won't repeat myself too much on this one.  But consider the different connotations with the words and ask yourself which one you'd use.  Certainly one of them is nicer in current society, but the other conveys a certain message that is important to the book as a whole.  It helps the reader to immediately understand what kind of person a character is, simply by their use of this word.  Can that be achieved to the same effectiveness with the replacement word?

I am still working all of this out in my head and may add to this entry even after it's posted because I feel that my thoughts are only half-formed.