February Post

“We can say language is arbitrary because the words we use were, at one time, randomly selected. For instance, as the Internet became something we used routinely, words such as surf, window, web, and bookmark. We borrowed from other contexts, changing them to meet our new needs” (Warren, Fasset, 126).

            This particular sentence caught my eye, mainly because of how true and real it is. More and more new words are being invented and inducted into the dictionary every year. And it’s crazy to think what new words will be part of our daily lives in the future. When the internet first was introduced to the world, I could only imagine how weird and taboo it was for people to adapt to the words being used to describe a certain thing that contributes to making the internet what it is. Just like the quote mentions about words such as surf. At the time when the internet came out. It did not have an ambiguous meaning just like how it does in the present day. It was mainly used as the name of a sport. And once the internet came out I can only imagine how confused people were and wondering why they would use a word like surf. A word that today means to navigate on the internet. “None of these words was an inevitable result of the internet; we could have passed over any of them in favor of smif, roddell, wuzzy, or something else” (126). This quote which follows my main quote explains that at the time, basically any word could’ve taken what it meant to navigate on the internet. That instead of “surfing” the internet we would’ve been saying, “smiffing” the internet. The reading then goes on and says that these words sound silly to us right now but at the time these words were taken into heavy consideration.

            Something that fascinates me, that was sparked by this quote is exactly words us humans will be using to describe a particular doing in the future. Not too long ago the word selfie was introduced to the word by accident. And now it’s become a phenomenon and basically every age group knows exactly what the word means. Don’t say when you’re out in public and you hear the word selfie you look around because you know a picture is going to be taken.