When did ‘hate’ become a common verb?
My daughter came home with the f-word last year and a very interesting conversation ensued. That was just the beginning of a series of words she brought home as her vocabulary becomes increasingly prolific. Like a rock collection, I constantly have to scrub and discard her acquisitions; there are words and phrases I am always discouraging. ‘Like’ is one of those words used when there is no comparative analogy. I am also constantly reconstructing her out of sequence objects into compound subjects when she begins the sentence with ‘me and my friend.’ And, of course, there’s the word ‘hate’. Such a dense little word packing a volatile pronouncement.
She hates this, she hates that. She hates onions. She hates Susie. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. It didn’t take me long to say, “Hate is such a strong word; don’t you know any others you can employ to express a milder form of displeasure?” My daughter had to pause and chew on that sentence for a few seconds. Then she said, “But I don’t know any other words.” Not true.
Hate is too potent a word to describe practically any childhood experiences. If it is not curbed, then what words and actions would be appropriate when she gets older if ‘hate’ was the baseline to describe minor irritants?
We took the opportunity to rhyme off some underused synonyms. Right off the bat, she knew dislike. Out of the other words she learned that day, I think abhor was a new favorite, followed closely by loathe. Then I told her that words in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. It is the way she used the words that will give the meaning of good or bad. Also important is to be civilized and not use these words to describe people. In very much the same conversation I had had with my daughter on the proper use of the f-word, negatives words shouldn’t be used to describe people, but rather things. There are many things a person can hate: wasting time; forgetting to bring snow pants; or having lost something. There may even be situations where one person can hate another, but typically that has to do with behavior. For example, “I hate it when you don’t let me finish my sentence.”
As parents, we want to confirm that our children’s hateful phrases aren’t indicative of intense aversion toward something that is genuinely bothering them. She may truly hate Susie because she is a bully to her. In this case, your daughter’s preoccupation is one of survival, and the word accurately reflects the intensity of her misery with Susie. But barring psychological and other such trauma, I think the reason why children like to use the word hate is because they simply do not have the benefit of a sophisticated array of words to describe the gradation of negative emotions that are emergent. For them, getting a brain freeze while enjoying chocolate ice cream has the equivalent discontent as being left out in a game of grounders. Though, I feel less badly for the child with a self-inflicted brain freeze than a child being excluded from general playground disagreements, but neither should invoke the power of the word, ‘hate’. It is too potent a word to describe practically any childhood experiences. If it is not curbed, then what words and actions would be appropriate when she gets older if ‘hate’ was the baseline to describe minor irritants?
I will end this article in the same way I ended a previous article on the use of the f-word. I believe that language is a powerful tool and words are the fine instruments used in expressing thoughts and emotions. It should be learned well. There’s nothing inherently bad with any of the words; they just have to be used for the right situations, at the right time and with the right audience.