How do people change the meaning of words?

Question

Like hoe , It's suppused to mean a gardening tool , But now it means a (you know).

Answer 1

They just take a perfectly good word & use it wrong. Like gay use to mean happy, but not anymore! Special use to mean something much better, but now means severely disabled.

Answer 2

It's still a gardening tool. The word also has become an abbreviation for "whore", but that's not changing the meaning of the word, that's just an abbreviation that sounds like another word. A homophone.

Languages are as living and breathing as the people who speak them. They are constantly changing. Shakespeare's English was in the early Modern period, and yet it's still difficult for some contemporary readers. Some of the words don't exist in the language any longer, and others have taken on different meaning.

The language changes as the world changes and as people find new ways to describe things, or ascribe new meanings to old words. The computer age is a good example. The word "mouse" still makes one think of a little furry rodent... but now it also calls to mind the computer hardware we use to direct our pointer. A "monitor" may have once called up only the image of someone watching over something, while now it also calls to mind the screen of your computer.

Answer 3

Here's a interest trivia on the meaning of words. Some British college students had a bet in the late 1800's that they could create a brand new word, and have the London Times pick it up and use it within 30 days. The word had to be total fake, and not based on any word from another language, or be like another word, or a different meaning for a word.

So they invented the word, and began using it in speech, as graffitti, writing in on rest walls, etc. And on day 29, the London Times used it in an article. That word was "quiz".

Answer 4

'ho' is a mispronunciation of 'whore', shortening the word. This may be due to ebonics, or to laziness, or to pride (regarding precision of diction as unmany or undesirable or to be mocked.)

Some words change their meaning as people attach different meanings to them over time. It is a matter of usage and associations.

Completely unnecessary joke, but it will get the point across: (I saw this in a one-panel cartoon)

Santa Claus is appearing in court. The prosecuting attorney addresses the jury and says "It is the prosecution's intent to prove that the defendant, last December 24th in the shopping mall, did address my client, the plaintiff-- a woman of good reputation and impeccable character-- and did; not once, not twice, but three times call her a 'ho'."

Santa realizes he's doomed.

Answer 5

Pick a word and just start using it differently!! Wherever you go find a way to use it and see if it catches on!! I love doing that! I didn't make up the phrase "hella" but I moved from California to all over the place (my hubby's in the Army) now I've got people from all over the country using it! It's hella cool!

Answer 6

Actually the word for a prostitute is different, and is spelled differently. Ie: Ho. Not Hoe, which would be a garden tool. The people who spell it wrong are uneducated rubes, and you should let them off the hook.

Answer 7

ummm good Q? i personally have three ideas..
1.) when people (like the president or Ryan Secrest.) use it wrong it catches on.
2.) a bunch of people like (i have no idea who) but anyways they get determined to start a fad and like 1 out of a million catch on
3.) this is a fallen world and the devil Perseus to destroy it even further. seeing as how most the time they are used for non child friendly words.

OK i got a forth

creeps use "code"words for creepy words like gay, and flamer, and buoyant, and hoe, and chink, and beaner, and on and on and on the list go's on..... but they catch on because they make people feel better about being so mean.

Answer 8

Cuz like a similie it really means garden tool basically you use it when you want... and in slang you use her when you want....
I know this cuz i live in the projects of New York City called the GHETTO! even though I think women should not be called that their life is their business!

Answer 9

actually, its Ho, no "e"

thats why they are completely different meanings.

also, its called slang, you can make any word mean something else,

words are nothing more than sounds made by the mouth, tongue, and vocal chords.

the meanings, are a set list of definitions, given to these sounds.

the reason we "know" words, is because our brain links the audible sounds we give to these words to a graphic image, and a set of memories.

Answer 10

Probably from Whore, people got lazy and ended up shortening it to Hoe, we'll probably just use one letter soon, well it's started already hasn't it, r u r8 (are you alright)