Words

It is uncanny that a language consisting of a twenty-six-letter alphabet could create some of the most beautiful , but also some of the most hateful , words known to society . Words have profound meaning - without words , we are essentially lost as a culture . A word that has changed meaning significantly over the last few centuries is the word faggot

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary , the word faggot ' has gone through many changes over the last few centuries . A word that started out meaning a bundle of twigs bound up .a bundle

of sticks (Harper ) no longer has the same nonchalant , innocent meaning as it did in the late thirteenth century (Harper . The origin of the word faggot ' is uncertain , but it is guessed to be derived from It Faggotto , dim . of V .L .fascis .fasces (Harper . On the other hand the 1914 version , male homosexual , is American Slang that later shortened down to fag ' in 1921 (Harper

The history of the word faggot ' dates back to the late thirteenth century . Aside from the aforementioned meaning , according to Harper , a bundle of twigs , another meaning showed up in the 1530s . In England Parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense , where hanging was the method prescribed for punishment (Harper . Additionally , in the 1550s , the word was used for burning heretics , so that the phrase fire and faggot was used to indicate punishment of a heretic ' Heretics who recanted were required to wear an embroidered figure of a faggot on their sleeve as...