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A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive or negative, with regard to its pleasing or displeasing emotional connection. [ 1 ]
MILF: [27] An acronym slang term meaning "mother I'd like to fuck"; considered sexist and ageist by some and positive or neutral by others. Mrs. Robinson: Refers to a character in the 1967 feature film "The Graduate"; slang term referring to an older woman pursuing someone younger than herself, typically an adolescent male. (see "cougar" above)
But connotative meanings are context-dependent, i.e. the addresser must learn how to match the meaning intended by the addresser to one of the various possible meanings held in memory. The power of connotation is that it enables the addresser to more easily consider abstract concepts and to introduce subtlety into the discourse.
Politicians employ euphemisms, [12] and study how to use them effectively: which words to use or avoid using to gain political advantage or disparage an opponent. . Speechwriter and journalist Richard Heller gives the example that it is common for a politician to advocate "investment in public services," because it has a more favorable connotation than "publ
An idiom is an expression that has a figurative meaning often related, but different from the literal meaning of the phrase. Example: You should keep your eye out for him. A pun is an expression intended for a humorous or rhetorical effect by exploiting different meanings of words. Example: I wondered why the ball was getting bigger. Then it ...
“Kids use Alpha and Sigma interchangeably,” Lindsay tells TODAY.com. “They don’t make much of a distinction between being humble or not, even though that’s (technically) the definition.”
Social meaning, where words are used to establish relationships between people and to delineate social roles. For example, in Japanese, the suffix "-san" when added to a proper name denotes respect, sometimes indicating that the speaker is subordinate to the listener; while the suffix "-chan" denotes that the speaker thinks the listener is a ...
To coin a word to refer to a thing, the community must agree on a simple meaning (a denotative meaning) within their language, but that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes. Codes also represent the values of the culture, and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life.