Happening To Language

In Jack Rosenthal’s article, "So Here 's What 's Happening to Language" he discusses how through spoken language ,written language becomes more informal. Through this informalization many words that were considered vulgar, dirty, or offensive become denatured. Rosenthal then goes on to use the word “ Screw” as an example(Walters, p.128). Three more words that have become denatured are ‘Bastard’, ‘Damn’ and ‘Nigger’.

The words above are generally described as profane. Profanity is blasphemous or obscene language. People usually use profanity to convey strong emotions ,to emphasis or make a point.

An example of this is when during a Health-care Reform signing Vice President Joe Biden leaned in and whispered to Obama, “This is a

The word ‘Nigger’is purhaps one of the lagest examples of a word being Change over time. In an article by the African American Registry titled, Nigger (The Word), A Brief History states, “The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger, meaning Black. This word became the noun, Negro (Black person) in English, and simply the color Black in Spanish and Portuguese. In early modern French, niger became negre and, later, negress (Black woman) was unmistakably a part of language history. One can compare to negre the derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. It is probable that nigger is a phonetic spelling of the White Southern mispronunciation of Negro.”

This History of the word, “Nigger” is one the incites lots of anger and resentment through many people of the United States. ‘Nigger’ was established as a derogatory term for black people. It was used to ridicule and describe blacks and It held the connotations of being inferior, illiterate, poor, etc. During the time of its use it was not a big deal, it was a word commonly used by white people to describe black person and could be used in