Emotional Attachment to Words

Words can be used negatively to impact the way people feel about themselves and others. Take, for instance, racial slurs and epithets. A word like "nigger" for example, has so many negative connotations that white people, like myself, cannot use it in polite speach. Even, might I add, to talk about it as a word, without using it as an insult.

A friend of mine touched on the emotional attachment to words on Facebook today. Although I am taking what he wrote about a little out of context, he did make an interesting point. Sometimes "someone's emotional attachment to words is so strong that [it] hinders their abilities to cope with life." He then went on to use his own words in a negative way and say that these people "should end it" (referring to their lives).

I hope that more people learn to use words in positive ways and create new meanings for words that once meant derrogatory things. The Vagina Monologues and the feminist movement, for example, have worked to reclaim words like "bitch" and "cunt" to represent female power.