Sucks and Blows :: essays research papers

In popular culture watchwords are often taken out of context to mean something other than what you impart read in a dictionary, commonly referred to as dupe. Classic examples of this throughout recent history is the word bad meaning good, or sucks implying bad, or blows withal, oddly enough meaning bad. If it is not already evident slang almost never makes any matter of the original meaning of a word. One of the newest editions to the dictionary of slang can be encounterd paseo down the hall of any school, college, or university. You will undoubtedly hear the word sternot within a few minutes of being on campus. Over the many thousand years of the evolution of a spoken word the harmless utterance has now taken on a new meaning and became an extremely negative and hurt- suffered word, faggot.Researching the word faggot counterbalance brings forth the Latin word fasces (fascibus). Originating during the Roman Empire the fasces was an axe surrounded by a tightly wrapped bund le of sticks and a major figure of the power and authority an individual possessed. It is said that fasces were carried as symbols of power by Roman lictors in front of certain all important(predicate) people such as kings, consuls, vestal virgins, and proconsuls. The number of fasces-bearing lictors helped symbolize the splendour of the officials. During World War II Mussolini used the fasces as a symbol of absolute power in his tyrannical fascist government. Even lifelessness today the fasces is a symbol of power there are fasces on the walls of the US House of Representatives and on the dime. During the late twelve-hundreds the Old French word fagot meaning bundle of sticks such as the one adjoin a fasces came to be. During the seventeen-hundreds the British added a g and derived the word faggot, also meaning bundle of sticks or wood. During this time a faggot was first used as slang meaning an unqualified soldier that was added to fill ranks in a military regiment. These so ldiers were positioned around the perimeter to protect the to a greater extent qualified soldiers from attack in the same manner the bundle of sticks protect the axe in a fasces. Later during the same century ageds in the British public schools began referring to a junior who does certain duties for a senior as a faggot. It is during this time that the first verb is derived in the form of fag (e.