The English language is growing and changing every day. We have a living language, meaning that it will constantly change as society changes the meaning and connotations of words. The members of a society can take a word and make it mean something very different seemingly overnight. Word changes to fit our constantly growing society and we change them so they can fit our current societal situation. There may be times when the change of a word might not make complete sense, but society has accepted the change to fit in with our societal position.
Take the word ratchet for instance, according to Webster’s Dictionary, the word ratchet is defined as “A device made up of a wheel or a bar with many teeth along its edge in between which a piece fits so that the wheel or bar can move only in one direction. ” Urban Dictionary, however, defines ratchet as “A diva mostly from urban cities and ghettos that has reason to believe she is every man’s eye candy. ” Some people have changed the definition even further to describe a person’s social class.
Some people may even look at it as a sort of blanket term for a certain stereotypical person, such as a woman of color, with a poor set of morals, and that comes from an area of lower economic status. Because the English language is growing and changing to fit in with our society, the word ratchet has become a culturally relevant word that can be a stereotype or describe a person or a social class. So, how did a word that was originally the name of a tool come to describe a type of person, a person’s social class, or a blanket term for a certain stereotype?
The word ratchet was originally the name of a type of socket wrench that was able to move in one direction, but not in the other direction; it is similar to being able to pedal forward on a bike, but not backwards. According to John Ortved, author of “Ratchet: The Rap Insult That Became a Compliment”, the first noted use of ratchet as a slang word was Shreveport, Louisiana by a rapper named Anthony Mandigo. In the late 1990’s, Mandigo released a song called “Do tha Ratchet” on his album Ratchet Fight in the Ghetto but was not very popular outside of Louisiana.
In 2004, Earl Williams, a producer known as Phunk Dawg, recorded a new version of the song, featuring the better-known Lil Boosie (currently incarcerated), from Baton Rouge, as well as Mandigo and another Shreveport rapper named Untamed Mayne” (Ortved). When the new version of the song was released, it came with its own dance call ‘The Ratchet. The dance mimicked the motion of an actual ratchet tool and caught on very quickly. In the liner notes of the CD, Phunk Dawg wrote a definition of ratchet: “n. , pron. , V, adv. , 1. To be ghetto, real, gutter, nasty” (Ortved).
The ‘ratchet’ craze took off after the song and dance began to be used by famous rappers, such as Lil Wayne. When other rappers began to use the word ratchet, it began to mean something more positive. “When ratchet is used in hip hop, it can also mean cool, sloppy, sleek, or flashy” (Ortved). However, more recently, ratchet has taken on a more negative connotation. People associate the word ratchet with African Americans and the media tends to portray them as trashy. Ortved claims that we “only [see] groups of black women fighting on TV in shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Basketball Wives, and Bad Girls Club”.
In the article “Lexiculture: Papers on English Words and Culture, vol. 1, article 7” by Jessica Hurst, it states that “it is becoming a blanket term for, ‘all things associated with the linguistic, stylistic, and cultural practices, witnessed or otherwise, of poor people; specifically poor people of color, and more specifically poor women of color. ‘ (Bowen). ” Even though a majority of the connotations associated with the word ratchet are negative, we can associate it with the older definitions, as well. There is also a more empowering form of the word ratchet that embraces the edginess and roots in the southern culture.
This is a more positive connotation for the word ratchet and is not seen as much as the negative connotations. When we look at how far the word ratchet has come, it is almost unbelievable. It has touched on many different areas and has been positive and negative. Ratchet girls, ratchet neighborhoods, ratchet lifestyles, and even ratchet music is all a part of the blanket that the word has made. Whether it is meant as a positive or negative when describing these topics all depends on the context of which it is used. “Ew, that girl is so ratchet! ” is obviously a negative connotation of the word.
However, when it is used to say “Wow! Your watch is so ratchet! It must have cost you a fortune,” it is meant in a positive way. In the first sentence, ratchet was used in place of trashy. In the second sentence, ratchet was used in place of flashy. We have the power to take the word ratchet and make it a negative or a positive. Ratchet may have begun as a simple socket wrench, but today it has such a wide range of connotations. Tomorrow, ratchet could mean something completely different and it is all because we have an ever growing and ever changing language.