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“When did the word 'compromise' get compromised? When did the negative connotations of 'He was caught in a compromising position' or 'She compromised her ethics' replace the positive connotations of 'They reached a compromise'?”
Deborah Tannen“To reduce poetry to its reflections of historical events and movements would be like reducing the poet's words to their logical or grammatical connotations.”
Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings“Evil can't be scientifically defined: it's an illusory moral concept that doesn't exist in nature. Its origins and connotations have been inextricably been linked to religion and mythology.”
Spencer Reid“Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.”
Charles Bernheimer“Madness is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting,too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel“Nerds... the 'nerd' has never been precisely defined, thanks to the psychological complexity of the creature. The word has connotations of some level of intelligence. The typical nerd is a male with intelligence but no sense of giving it a manly face.”
Tom Wolfe“If the metaphors in everyday speech are a clue, then all of us associate blankness with virtue rather than with nothingness. Think of the moral connotations of the adjectives: clean, fair, immaculate, lily-white, pure, spotless, unmarred and unsullied.”
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature“In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.”
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity“I have studiously tried to avoid ever using the word 'madness' to describe my condition. Now and again, the word slips out, but I hate it. 'Madness' is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation“There is a tendency for humans to consciously see what they wish to see. They literally have difficulty seeing things with negative connotations while seeing with increasing ease items that are positive. For example, words that evoke anxiety, either because of an individual's personal history or because of experimental manipulation, require greater illumination before first being perceived.”
Lionel Tiger, Optimism: The Biology of Hope