Be honest with yourself here, you know you can be ignorant to things from time to time but still act as if you know what you're talking about. I know I do it quite often. How often do you go thru life never knowing the true meaning of a word yet using it constantly as if you did? Every once in a while I notice this in myself. Why I don't catch on at first is beyond me, I guess my mind wants to believe it knows and then eventually realizes it's not sure anymore.
I'll give you an example of one that happened today to me. I was talking to a co-worker about how I was up til late last night helping a friend who lives in Australia install some new maps for our computer game Call of Duty World at War. They guy is not very computer literate and trying to explain to him where to go, what options to activate or deactivate on Windows Vista and using winrar became very difficult so I ended up having to remotely control his computer from mine. It's pretty neat to be able to control someones computer from the US all the way to Australia. I was up till late but was able to set some of the maps seeing as he did not have them all downloaded and there were at least 30 maps that I was aware of and I did not plan on staying up another 2 hours downloading and installing the maps. Anyways, this morning, as I shared this "late night adventure" with my co-worker I started thinking about when I joined the clan I play with online called The Brotherhood Clan; our tags in the game are [BHC]. As usual, my mind begins to wander and I find myself questioning everything and eventually asked myself "why does my clan use the word clan?". I have seen other words to describe a group of people who hang together kinda like a club and considering the word clan tends to be associated with the KKK quite often, I found it interesting to see they chose to call themselves a clan as oppose to guild.
This is where I realized my ignorance as I had to admit to myself that I did not know the true meaning of the words clan or guild. Gosh, how many times have I heard and used these words and never really knew the real meanings. I have an idea of what they represent but it's always been my understanding that while there are words out there that can mean the same thing but are spelled differently, sometimes they also mean something else or something more specific than just the common definition.
According to a couple of website definitions, the word "clan" means the following:
kin: group of people related by blood or marriage
A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. ...
According to the same sites, the word "guild" means the following:
club: a formal association of people with similar interests; "he joined a golf club"; "they formed a small lunch society"; "men from the fraternal order will staff the soup kitchen today"
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers.
It's a shame I did not know this, I'm glad I do now though. It's interesting to see how both definitions are similar and different at the same time; while both intend to form some kind of club based on mutual interest, one is based more on kinship while the other could be anyone. This makes my clans choice to use the word clan even more interesting, I don't think any of us are kin or descendants of each other (unless you look at it from a religious standpoint but that's not the point). Guild seems to describe us better, but hey, it's not my clan and I'm not complaining, just a thought.
Whats even more interesting is that online gaming description of both these words:
In computer and video gaming, a clan or guild is a group of players who regularly play together in a particular (or various different) multiplayer games . These games range from groups of a few friends to 1000-person organizations, with a broad range of structures, goals and members. ...
I know feel much better knowing th true meaning of each word and also the online gaming version of them and now I wonder a little less about the reason behind picking the word clan over guild or some other club-like word. But it's only a matter of time before I find myself not truly knowing the meaning of a particular word that I always thought I did know.
How often do you admit to yourself you don't know the meaning of a word? You would think one would just look it up quick to avoid looking stupid or something but we have seen more often that not many don't bother (myself included). I don't expect everyone to know the meaning of every single word, but don't you think people should at least make the effort to know the meaning of words before they go around pretending to know?
In a time where people have given new meanings to words either because it's a "cool" thing or because it suits their political agenda; I think when it comes to matter that put peoples lives on the line, one should know the true meaning of a word before throwing it around praying on the ignorance of the average person for personal gain.