English
Mrs. Robinson
01/14/2003
The Power of a Word Passion: strong emotion, desire. The Power of a Word is all about how it is interpreted. Interpretation can change the meaning of any word. An eighty-year old man's interpretation of the word passion would probably vary from a twenty-year old woman's interpretation of passion. Interpretation is key when it comes to defining a word. Rick Shaw says that passion is "The desire to do something that you like come hell or high-water". Meanwhile, my younger brothers believe that "Passion is how you feel about women". It is all in how people view things. I could stare at an abstract painting for hours, wondering what it is supposed to be. While Mrs. Goulet could take one glimpse at it and give you a two-hour long interpretation about what that painting means. …show more content…
The word passion was first interpreted in 1175.
It was interpreted as "the suffering of Christ on the cross", hence the Passion of the Christ. Nearly two-hundred years later, 1374, the word began to be interpreted as "strong emotion, desire". In 1588 passion was being defined as "sense of sexual love". By 1638 the word was understood, by most, to mean "Strong liking, enthusiasm, and or predilection". After this many different meaning of the word passion, it is easy to understand why it has so many different interpretations today. Different languages also have different interpretations of words. The word passion in the English language would probably have a different meaning to Arabic people. But words do not only differ from person to person or language to language. Words will also heavily differ from culture to culture. Passion would most likely be described differently between a Native American community and a Jewish community.
Words like passion will always have different meanings between different people, languages, and
cultures. Webster's Dictionary defines passion as: intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction. But Cambridge Dictionaries define it as: a very powerful feeling, for example of sexual attraction, love, hate, anger or other emotion. Just like people, dictionaries have different meanings and interpretations of words as well. The word passion has changed significantly since its first interpretation. It is viewed in many different ways, by many different people. When I first started this essay only one word came to my mind when I heard passion, love. But now I believe that passion is an unconditional love and or determination for something that you love or love to do. But the interpretations of words, like passion, will always remain constantly changing and picking up new meanings as humans continue to evolve. If you are going to use this paper, please re-edit to some extent. So that you don't get caught for cheating.