Essay On The Word Ratchet

The English language is growing and changing every day. We have a living language, meaning that it will constantly change as society changes the meaning and connotations of words. The members of a society can take a word and make it mean something very different seemingly overnight. Word changes to fit our constantly growing society and we change them so they can fit our current societal situation. There may be times when the change of a word might not make complete sense, but society has accepted the change to fit in with our societal position. Take the word ratchet for instance, according to Webster’s Dictionary, the word ratchet is defined as “A device made up of a wheel or a bar with many teeth along its edge in between which a piece fits so that the wheel or bar can move only in one direction.” Urban Dictionary, however, defines ratchet as “A diva mostly from urban cities and ghettos that has reason to believe she is every
It has touched on many different areas and has been positive and negative. Ratchet girls, ratchet neighborhoods, ratchet lifestyles, and even ratchet music is all a part of the blanket that the word has made. Whether it is meant as a positive or negative when describing these topics all depends on the context of which it is used. “Ew, that girl is so ratchet!” is obviously a negative connotation of the word. However, when it is used to say “Wow! Your watch is so ratchet! It must have cost you a fortune,” it is meant in a positive way. In the first sentence, ratchet was used in place of trashy. In the second sentence, ratchet was used in place of flashy. We have the power to take the word ratchet and make it a negative or a positive. Ratchet may have begun as a simple socket wrench, but today it has such a wide range of connotations. Tomorrow, ratchet could mean something completely different and it is all because we have an ever growing and ever changing