First thing's first, here's an important word for you to know: hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the study of what words and phrases mean. Whenever you're reading through a book, what you're actually doing, believe it or not, is hermeneutics. Basically, you're reading the words, and trying to figure out just what the author means by them. Pretty straightforward so far, right? The problem is that sometimes, there's a big difference between what a person's saying and what they actually mean. This difference is called "Denotation" (The "officially sanctioned" information in their dialogue) vs. "Connotation" (what they're actually using the sentence to mean.)
One of the best examples of this is in irony. Irony is when what is meant in the context is incongruous with what should actually be meant, or when something happens that is incongruous with what should happen. To use a borrowed example, Getting married to a meteorologist on a rainy day is a little ironic. As a side note, when hipsters say they're doing something ironically, they're actually just being arrogant pricks, but that's beside the point. Actually, come to think of it, no it isn't! I'm writing a blog, and thus might be expected to be a hipster, but instead I'm railing against hipsters. THAT right there is a perfect example of irony, and if I were unaware of it it would be dramatic irony.
Another good example can be found in words that have multiple meanings. My favorite example is the word "love." Love has so many meanings. You can say "I love my spouse," or "I love my parents," or "I love my siblings," or "I love that movie," or "I love this sandwich," or "I love Yeshua bar Yosef of Nazareth." Of course, none of those words "love" in the past sentence actually meant the same thing.
Here's the thing. When people use a powerful word, like love, to mean something else, that can kinda cheapen the word. Take the word "awesome." Way back when, when men were men and so were the women, people used the word awesome solely to describe God. Because, to them, the word actually meant "Inspiring awe." I don't know about you, but most of the things that immediately spring to mind when I think of people saying "awesome!" are surfer dudes and J.J. Abrams movies, not a jaw-dropping display of might and wisdom. The word epic has gone the same way, from meaning "A long story filled with many different adventures, all of which are obstacles in the way of the protagonist's ultimate goal, or an event relating to that story." Avatar: the Last Airbender, Order of the Stick and the Odyssey are epic. Throwing a basketball into the net from three-quarters of the way across the court and that spin-off of 40k with the Baneblades and the Leviathans? Not so epic.
Maybe that's just what we do. People I mean. We start out with stuff that's high quality, and we sort of degrade it over time. People invented the University as a place to train clergy and do science, a place where only the really prodigious went. Today, not only can any old schumck get into a University, 33% of people are expected to go to a university, and of course, the liberal arts degrees which they offer are not really science. People invented the computer to give us a better, faster way to store information, like the next level up from a book. Now, we use them to waste time playing shooter games. And people invented the internet as a better way to share information. Now we (the human race) use the internet to watch fat guys going nuts with lightsabers, and to look at porn. Somebody nice, or good, or at least with good intentions makes something really great, and then everybody else says "hey, let's go do something stupid with it." (Don't get me wrong. Video games, liberal arts degrees, and fat guys with lightsabers are all fine things.)
Maybe, if we start using words to mean what they mean, instead of cheapening them, like a "hamburger" that actually uses a spam patty, it'll be the first step in not cheapening other things. Starting small is always a good place, and talking seems to be the most basic part of human nature. Ciao! (<---Irony?)
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