Why Timing Changes the Meaning of Words
Words don’t change on their own. What changes is the moment in which we hear them. This is something I didn’t fully understand until I started paying attention to how the same words affected me differently at different stages of my life. A sentence that once felt ordinary suddenly felt heavy. Another that once felt powerful later felt empty. That was when I realized something important: meaning is not fixed — it is timed. Why Does the Meaning of Words Change Over Time? The meaning of words changes over time because human experience changes. Words don’t live in dictionaries. They live in moments, emotions, memories, and personal situations. The same word can feel comforting in one season and confronting in another. This isn’t because the word itself has changed, but because the person hearing it has. Let me ask you something personal: Have you ever reread somethi...