Words that lose their meaning....
Now this pisses me off. Some words are so overused that they basically have no meaning. My first pick is 'hero'. The term used to really mean something; somebody who dragged an old lady from a burning building; somebody who jumped in front of a speeding car to get a child out of danger; now, those are heroes. But today I heard something about all the people killed in the 911 attack, and the commentator called them all heroes. Nope. The police and fire fighters? Yup. The rest? Wrong place; wrong time.
My second pick is 'cyber-bully'. This used to mean a psychotic person who, for one reason or another, stalks you around the Internet attacking you; writes blogs full of lies about you to embarrass you; gets your email address and harasses you relentlessly with unwanted and nasty emails; puts up a MySpace page defaming you. Now that's a cyber-bully.
But here on eons a cyber-bully is anyone who doesn't agree with you and argues with you. If this horrible person has others who agree with him and express their opinions, then they are the cyber-bully's 'gang'. When did this word get demoted to this silliness? I have read stories of teenage girls who have been stalked and had their characters absolutely assassinated by other vicious teenage girls, girls who put up those MySpace pages making derogatory and untrue statements about them. Calling them on their cell phones leaving nasty and vulgar messages. That's cyber-bullying (at least according to Wikipedia.)
And finally, Nazi. This word was just about the worst thing you could call anybody. If somebody called you a Nazi, that meant you were a horrible, vicious person with no conscience. Today? Nope. It could be somebody who picks on other people because of their grammar and spelling, the 'grammar Nazi'. In Manhattan there's even a 'soup Nazi'.
I realize that language is a 'living thing' and is constantly evolving, but I hate it when powerful words lose all their power.
