Savage

The pronunciation of the word savage implies the word’s meaning. While it sounds rough on your tongue—practically forcing you to bite your lip in the process—it holds an almost musical quality that makes you want to say it again. Similarly, of the many definitions of the word savage, all bring about the idea of something ferocious, but by choosing to describe something brutal with such a word romanticizes it. The word harks back to a time when explorers encountered and tamed savages in their quests for riches or eternal youth. The time when the new world held exciting mysteries and secrets and many were not carful with their actions, a time now glamorized. Savagery implies horrible acts, atrocities against innocents, and deviations from societal norms. While these definitions do not always seem to fit together, all refer to things that engross human attention in their fascinating wickedness.
I chose to research the word savage because I find it interesting that the horrors the word can connote are a fascinating taboo to so many. I also just liked how it sounded. I am sure both of those ideas came out in the paragraph above. When I think of the word savage, the idea of the historical “savages” comes to mind. Knowing that this word thus had deep routes in our language and pass, I wanted to find out what it exactly means.