‘Germany Raped Brazil’ In a world full of anomalies, this statement too shall gradually become a part of mainstream conversations, as we described earlier. The dictionary defines the word rape in different ways. Not all meanings refer to the crime. Those of us who are well versed with word meanings know this pretty well. The contextual meaning of rape is to destroy. But wait a minute . If rape is the same as destroy, why not use the word destroy itself? I am not arguing about the context (I will do that soon though), but whats wrong with Germany vanquished Brazil, where vanquished means defeat thoroughly and comprehensively? Think about it. The word rape, even with its contextual usage, is a weak substitute for destroy. Vanquished is a much more appropriate word in this context. Then why dont we use it in this case? You know why? Because Vanquish does not sensationalise a headline the way rape does. A social media post with the word rape will generate more responses, both negative and positive, than the word vanquish. Those who throw the word rape around can give any number of excuses and reasons, but the argument of taking the word in its context falls flat once you analyse the substitute words, vanquish being the best one. And trust me, I used to read the Chambers Dictionary like a magazine as a child, and I have not come across a better word than vanquish for such a context. So can we just agree (at the cost of fewer Likes for your Facebook status and at the expense of fewer re-tweets of your tweets) that rape is not an appropriate word in this context whatsoever? Thanks. ~ Abhijit Chakraborty The Anonymous Writer #FIFA #Germany #Argentina
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 02:30:00 +0000
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