Acrimony - Tyler Perry Teaches Vocabulary with Acrimony Movie
When Tyler Perry released the trailer for his movie Acrimony, the folks over at Merriam
Webster’s website noticed traffic spikes for the word, which corresponded with the
prime-time television advertisement spot.
Apparently, a lot of people didn’t know the meaning of the word—real talk, we didn’t
either--so it drove them (and us) to the website to find the definition for acrimony on their
site.
So, what IS the actual definition of the word Acrimony?
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According to Merriam Webster, Acrimony is defined as : anger and bitterness : harsh
or biting sharpness especially of words, manner, or feelings.
Given THAT definition, can YOU guess what the movie’s about?
Well Taraji P. Henson stars as the main character a fed up, longsuffering wife of at the hands
of her husband’s continued betrayals (a running theme in Madea—I mean Tyler Perry
movies).
So you can only imagine how this psychological thriller is gonna go down.
You’ve seen one scorned wife movie, you’ve seen ‘em all, but for all you Tyler Perry
Fans, don’t worry.
We’ve added a link to the full trailer in the description below.
BUT that’s not even the point of this discussion...
The more interesting conversation is about how something as simple as a movie title can
impact how people understand and use language.
Will people actually start to use the word Acrimony in everyday conversation?
The folks who actually TOOK the time to look up the word Acrimony, might starting to incorporate
it into their conversations, but what about the people who NEVER looked it up, yet still
associate the word with what happened in the movie?
They might start filling in the blank on what the word means, which could in turn have some
unintended consequences that represent how language evolves over time.
Could this movie title actually ADD additional meaning to the definition of Acrimony to include
not just anger and bitterness, but the ACTUAL revenge and retribution depicted in the movie?
As in…
“You don’t want this Acrimony that’s gonna come your way if you ever do me wrong.”
Remember the cartoon movie Bebe’s Kids from the 1990s?
The movie was an outgrowth of comedian Robin Harris’ stand-up routine where he talked
about dating a woman who had a bunch of bad kids.
After that, the term “Bebe’s Kids” was commonly used to characterize bad kids or
a big sibling group.
Another good example is Tom Hank’s movie, Road to Perdition.
Before the movie, most folks probably didn’t have a clue as to what perdition meant, but
just as with the word Acrimony, it probably led to a temporary spike in online dictionary
traffic back in 2002 when the movie came out.
Tyler Perry gave us a lot to think about with Acrimony, but this isn’t the first time
we’ve talked about the evolution of language.
In another video, linked in the comments, we gave an interesting take on how we think
Millenials may have turned the contraction “you’re” into the word “your.”
More evidence still that the English language is changing…
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