Apparently, saying homophobic things is now considered "brave". And although HuffPo later changed the headline to the article, I wasn't the only one to notice that they referred to Kim Kardashian's "brave" decision to wear leggings as pants.
After being bombarded lately with such bizarre misuses of the word brave, I mistakenly assumed that the word had lost all meaning; but that simply ain't the case (despite what my headline misleadingly implied). There is no fault with the users of the word; I am the one behind the times. It was only after careful examination of what I took for word misuse, that I realized I am witnessing something historic: the changing of the meaning of a word before my very eyes.
We are all well aware that many words have changed meanings over time. But this generally takes generations. So rare is it to see this phenomenon happen at such a rapid clip. Why, only in the past decade we referred to rescue workers and soldiers as brave. But that's not what the word is used for anymore.
Whereas bravery used to denote the risking of one's life and/or well-being in selfless acts, it is now an adjective used to describe a person who has said or done something; or an adverb used to describe the saying or doing of things. Now I don't know the purpose of using a word (and one, mind you, that already had a previous meaning) to define nothingness, but I just gotta get with the times.
To illustrate the rapidity with which brave changed meaning, a not-yet-released movie concerning the actions of a heroic female warrior—one who pits herself against the forces of death—has the misfortune of being attached to the antiquated use of the word brave in that its title is the one and the same old-fashioned brave. If only the makers of Brave had realized that brave doesn't mean brave anymore.
Here's some more modern bravery in action.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to bravely masturbate to internet porn.
3 comments:
While I agree the term Brave is getting tossed about with too much frequency and has lost a bit of its meaning.
With regrads to that upcoming Pixar film I think the term Brave is being used to define a fierce native savage warrior. Not so much as brave as in fearless.
Whoops. Thanks for the catch.
Kind of ironic that I made an entire post complaining that folks don't know what words mean and then I went ahead and made a mistake about what a movie title meant. Not gonna make excuses for that one. I screwed up.
In the future I should probably refrain from quickly spitting out blog posts right before going to bed--or at the very least I should reread these before posting them.
It was very brave of you to write this post.
Sorry...had to be said.
Also, Kirk Cameron is an asshat. A brave asshat, though, obviously.
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