Linguistically Speaking

Is there a difference between the words angry, annoyed, irritated,irked perturbed? What about the differences between imitate, emulate, copy, mimic? These words are similar in meaning but do they mean exactly the same thing? Being a person who is very particular about what words I use to describe what I intend to say, I think these synonyms although similar in meaning are not absolutely interchangeable. Meaning thereby when I say I “intend” to say something, it’s not exactly the same as saying that I “want” to say something. I think this is the case with everyone. It is easy to tell the context of the conversation by carefully scrutinizing the words used in it. Albeit small, there is still a difference in meaning we associate with different words.

This makes me wonder. What if we associate slightly different meanings to the same word? What if when I say the word annoy, I intend to say something which is ever so slightly different than what the listener thinks I meant. What sort of problems could this create?

If I were to elaborate on this point a little bit, it would follow that we make sure our friends or people we love associate the same emotions and meaning to certain words as we do. Or maybe that’s how it already is. Maybe only those people become friends whose meanings of words mean similar things.

I suggest we pay very close attention to this phenomenon. We have to be extremely perceptive of it. For if we are not, this has potential to cause problems where there should be none.