Is "carnage" and "bloodbath" the right language to describe a stock market crash?
By Badri Raina | January 24, 2008
Those that are learned in the modern theories of language have taught us how treacherous words can be.
For a start, there is no organic relation between a word and the object it implies.
For example, they tell us, there is nothing dog-like about the word “dog.” Nor is there anything colourfully red embedded in the form of the word “red.” How true!
Thus meanings are largely a matter of convention and cultural consensus among communities.
Alas, that is not all.
Further complications arise when it is considered that the objects towards which words signal (dog, red) in turn do not always or necessarily mean the same things to all users of the same language, even within closed communities.
Thus “dog” may to one person suggest something low and derogatory, but to another bring thoughts of loyalty and affection. Just as the word “red” may equally variously suggest any of the following: blood, wine, a traffic light, a communist, or, in the context of the current troubles in the global economy, just plain indebtedness (being in the red).
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