The faculty began the lecture with a very engrossing introduction of herself and the framework of the class, which was quite enlivening for me.
She further gave us the word “despicable” and asked the whole class what it meant for them. I discovered that everyone had a different definition and a different synonym for it. People form meanings and understand words in their own ways, depending on their experience, how they have come across the word before, what the statement or the context is, how their culture has shaped their perspective towards the word, etc. Thus, how individuals perceive various words is always pertaining to some kind of bias.
Many times, the relevance of a word changes according to the context. For example, you might use “despicable” for a person, but for a place, you would rather use one of its synonyms like “awful” or “horrible”.
In other words, the synonyms of a word (which might seem interchangeable for some statements) do not always convey the same meaning. Hence, synonyms are’nt necessarily interchangeable. For example, take the statement “this child is irritating“. In this sentence, irritating might as well be replaced by “annoying“, “irksome” or “bothersome“. But synonyms like “pestilent“, “tiresome” or “inconvenient” can not be used here to convey the same meaning.
CONCLUSION- We often face problems conveying our messages or expressing our ideas. To be able to tackle this challenge, we need learn to choose the right word, which is universally understood and accepted. It’s necessary to be considerate about the context in which you’re speaking, and the receiver of the message too. However, apart from using the right words, its also important to speak in the right manner and at the right time.
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