asyouwish/De Saussure/ 1/21 post response

The idea of thought being vague without language has always been an interesting concept to me. I have experienced frustration when trying to explain things in the past and not having a word for what I am meaning to say. While taking a religion class at Rollins called Love, Eros and Religion our professor discussed with our class the differences in the meaning of love throughout the world. In America we love everything and it is confusing for foreigners to hear us say "Oh I love ice cream" and then use the same word for something we truly have deep feelings for such as saying "I love my husband". The word love in American culture is a word that has too many meanings. In the Chinese tongues there are hundreds of words that represent different types of love. The Chinese language has different love words for the love of an activity, a thing, a human, a friend, a pet or even a place. However the American language as stated before has one word to encompass it all and in my opinion causes the word to mean less. Saying I love the Yankees and then telling your boyfriend or girlfriend or family member you love them is not as meaningful as if you had said it in Chinese. Then as discussed in class is the concept of words meaning multiple things, we use language as a way to get our points across clearly and yet as slang terms or other cultures influence our language, understanding each other becomes more difficult even in ones own country. Words such as gay which used to mean happy have come to only mean homosexual or stupid when used in context such as "wow thats so gay". I was watching a very Brady Sequel the other day and such a language gap occurred. The Brady's stated they all wanted to be gay and the man at the concierge desk who they were talking to thought that they all wanted to be lesbians and homosexuals and showed a look of disgust. Even words like tight, sick, bomb, dough and cool have experienced slang changes to their meanings. It seems even our own language can confuse us with its words that mean multiple things. If we can't keep track of our own lingo, how are we supposed to expect others to?