Extended definition essay on the word bachelor
Grant and Montrose (2018) in It’s a man’s world define a bachelor as an unmarried man who has never been married, the male mammal or bird prevented by the dominant male from bleeding. Bachelor also refers to the first-degree holder from a university, classified as a bachelor of either arts or science. In Canada, a bachelor apartment stands for one room. The historical meaning of the word bachelor is a young knight surviving under the banner of another night. Like any other word with multiple meanings, the particular significance of a bachelor requires a social context to decipher (Dictionary 2018). Bachelor is ambiguous and contradictory in its numerous purposes ranging from what the word was used for, the evolution it has undertaken to date, and the context of use in day-to-day conversations.
The purpose of examining the word bachelor is to understand its contribution to our daily conversations and how, in other words, it shapes our culture. We can understand more about ourselves when we study how we use different words and phrases when talking or in written texts. Words are essential communication and expression tools that aid cultural, psychological, and social interactions in society. This essay covers the uniqueness of the word bachelor, its universal use, history, and the changes it has undergone to date.
The history of the word bachelor ranges back around 1300 and is French for the lowest-ranked member of the knighthood (Pavlac 2017). It was through experience and time that a bachelor would be accorded the dignity of night and independently serve as one. Bachelors would not take the field independent of other knights’ banners hence considered underqualified.
The word bachelor adopted its meaning for an inferior grade in the 14th century. Learning institutions would associate the word bachelor with a person who has attained the least educational achievements in a particular field. With time, colleges adopted the word bachelor to denote the undergraduate degree in either arts or science. Other groups in the society where education or experience was exchanged also adopted the word bachelor in their conversations. Monks who were least in their ranking were referred to as bachelors. The use of bachelor, therefore, denoted one oriented into a field that they expected to gain expertise in with time (Willmott and Bryson 2013).
Combinations of the word bachelor are common, most of them with their meanings tied to the unmarried and never married a male human. A bachelor pad is an accommodation designed for and or owned by a bachelor. It has a bachelor’s need for comfortable living. Space serves to include female seduction purposes, hobbies, and interest pursuits and achieving entertainment purposes for their friends. A bachelor pad enables a bachelor, or commonly, a student to operate on a minimum cost of living.
Bachelor apartments are standard and have adopted a lifestyle similar to that befitting a bachelor pad and are shared among a youth or student populated areas. The apartments economize on the available construction space and bring together likeminded individuals. A bachelor party is a party organized by the groomsman to celebrate the bridegroom as he approaches his marriage. These parties range from day to overnight parties, or local to international vacations and are associated with plenty of fun activities (Worland 2018).
While the use of the word bachelor can mean an unmarried male human who has never married, the contest of its use could make it ambiguous without the user’s knowledge. (Carston 2019). This may lead to confusion on the audience who would associate it with its zoology, property, or historical meaning. Therefore, a keen orientation of your audience into the context that your use for the ambiguous bachelor targets to employ is of great importance. An explanation before or after the mention of the word can help to enhance the audiences’ understanding of the word bachelor.
Broughton, T. (2017). Love Among the Archives: Writing the Lives of Sir George Scharf, Victorian Bachelor.
Carston, R. (2019). Ad Hoc Concepts, Polysemy and the Lexicon. Relevance, Pragmatics and Interpretation, 150-162.
Dictionary, C. (2018). Electronic resource. Access Mode: http://www. linternaute. com/dictionnaire/fr/definition/antonyme.
Grant, R. A., & Montrose, V. T. (2018). It’s a man’s world: mate guarding and the evolution of patriarchy. Mankind quarterly, 58(3), 384-418.
Pavlac, B. A. (Ed.). (2017). Game of Thrones versus History: Written in Blood. John Wiley & Sons.
Willmott, H., & Bryson, A. (2013). Changing to suit the times: a post-Dissolution history of Monk Bretton Priory, South Yorkshire. Post-Medieval Archaeology, 47(1), 136-163.
Worland, R. (2018). Original Swingers: Hollywood’s Postwar Bachelor-Pad Cycle. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 46(3), 156-168.