Sick in the TwittersphereTo understand just how many different meanings the word “sick” has in society today, it can be useful to look at Twitter to see how people use the word “sick” in so many diverse contexts.
In some situations where a more medical sickness is occurring, the word holds the meaning of something that is “Suffering from illness of any kind; ill, unwell, ailing” (OED 1). This classic definition of the word can be seen in my tweet from a few days ago when I was unfortunately suffering from a bad cold. This is one of the more negative meanings of “sick”, as suffering from an illness usually is not something that one would desire to have.
As Twitter illustrates, the word “sick” is used to describe both negative and positive people, objects, and events. However, all of these varying definitions still hold true to the general meaning of “sick”, being that something is not in the usual state of being, or something is outside of its norm.
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