Gloria Naylor's The Meanings Of Words

In comptent of, nowadays countless words are used in many different ways to detriment people and not to comfort them. Equivalent to what Gloria Naylor expressed in her essay, “The Meanings of Words,” she states, “Words themselves are innocuous;it is the consensus that gives them true power”(118). For instance, the word that identified her and several African Americans was the “n” word and for me the word that identifies with my group is Oaxacan yet, both these words are used within the same group inappropriately to detriment each other. In the similar way, African Americans have taken the “n” word, which to whites it signify worthlessness or degradation and rendered it impotent against each other. However, these words also have a beneficial …show more content…
It was when she was in class, a boy had gotten a lower score than her so he called her the "n " word. Naylor knew the boy called her something reprehensible, in consequence, she went home to tell her mother what it meant considering the fact that she had no knowledge of what it meant. Later in the essay she explains how the "n" word has many different meanings to it. For example, it can mean a “distinguishment between others, a term of endearment, as well as a racial slur (insult)” (117). As a result, she argues how people take words and make them have the meaning they want to explain to others as a benefit or …show more content…
I now understand that the meanings of these two words have been used in the same group inappropriately to also offend the same people from the same group. Additionally, Naylor in her essay at the bottom a footnote expresses how “The word “nigger” is reprehensible in today's society by the reason that today African Americans use it to degrade them even if spoken from their own mouths” (116). Therefore, I agree that others and among those in the group use these words to benefit or detrimental them. As a result, nowadays countless words are used in many different ways to detriment people and not to comfort them. This leads to a the main idea in Naylor's essay “ Words themselves are innocuous: it is the consensus that gives them true power” (116) and I believe that this is a true fact according to how our society is using words to detriment people . In contempt of what is happening to immeasurable countless words, we should incorporate to use these words as a way to benefit others instead of detriment them even more if they consist of the same