11
votes
Change in the implied meaning of "masked men"
Has the sentence "the masked men entered the store" changed meaning post the pandemic. I think it feels less ominous than perhaps it used to. Now the words could imply "responsible men that wear masks in accordance with guidelines entered a store" where it would previously almost certainly imply "robbers entered the store". Since I'm not a native speaker I'm curious if this is just in my head or a more general thing? Are there other similar statements that has change?
Maybe there's a rhetorical difference between "masked men" and "men wearing masks" that accounts for that distinction. The first sounds ominous, while the second is merely descriptive.
I personally haven't noticed any change, context seems enough to clarify the cases.
The meaning of many, perhaps most sentences depends on context. Masks have always had multiple uses - consider ski masks, surgical masks, and Halloween masks. So the sentence's meaning can shift depending on what the next sentence is, and that was already true before the pandemic.
When the most common use shifts, meaning becomes a bit more ambiguous and you have to rely more on context to understand why they were wearing masks.
I think that "the masked men entered the store," as the first line of a story, still implies that the rest of the story is going to be about a robbery or something, because why would you only mention that they were wearing masks if it were normal? Even at a ski resort, or during the pandemic, you wouldn't say it like that. You'd just say, "the men entered the store."
Consider this sentence. "The masked men entered the store and asked for directions to the ski lift." Wouldn't you say the sentence has a bit of a surprise in it? It takes an unexpected turn.
"And we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home!" Was written when "gay" meant "happy" as opposed to "homosexual [man]".
I also wonder if some of the wording we use to describe having or getting into relationships will change, like "making" friends (especially if robotics gets that far) or "getting" or "having" a SO, considering how relationships aren't really dynamics where one "has" or "gets" one, albeit I'm biased because I like to deliberately interpret words literally from time to time.
It depends on your theory about how word meaning is created and interpreted.
Under theories such as Distributional Semantics or (a la J.R. Firth) “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.”, then, yes, the meaning changed. Under that framework (which underpins a lot of modern NLP), if you did an English corpus analysis representing common usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the data would show you the semantic drift of the word “mask”.
From a purely lexicographical perspective, though, I think this is just a pronounced change in the prevalence of a certain sense of the word “mask” which already existed pre-pandemic. That is, from a certain perspective, the language didn’t change, the world did, and our interpretation of the lexically ambiguous term “mask” is colored by which situations we consider more likely based on our prior experience. Maybe pre-pandemic the “mask” as disguise interpretation was more likely, but the “mask” as personal protection equipment also existed pre-pandemic (you would just be unlikely to have experience with this sense unless you worked in the medical field or were immuno-compromised or other special circumstances).
It may be "which sort of mask were they wearing?" that modifies the situation.
Ski mask, in summer? Probably not good. Surgical mask? Sure, no problem.
Even then, it's still context dependent. During COVID if you're wearing a mask you're part of the in group and don't need to be described. After COVID is done (our current state of affairs will end), the "man in the mask" may still inspire suspicion because of the nature of the mask. A surgical mask may not be significant, and so not warrant discussion, but a ski mask, sort of what "man in the mask" refers to, would be suspicious.
I think this is probably mostly in your head. I haven't heard "masked" used to describe people following COVID protocols anywhere near as much as "wearing masks / a mask". There's just something about the adjective "masked" that brings to mind a full facial covering like a ski mask or part of a costume over a sanitary mask.
But there are definitely statements that have changed because of the pandemic! The usage of "distancing" is one that comes to mind - pre-pandemic, it would refer to cutting ties / separating yourself from others, while now it just means standing a little farther away.
I was curious, and so a quick search revealed that yes indeed, some thieves have taken advantage of the situation:
Thank You Mask Man (1968) - Lenny Bruce Animation