The Etymology, Meanings and Different Connotations of the Word “Ghetto"

Etymologia, Denotata, et Alter Connotare de Verbum “Jactare”

(The Etymology, Meanings and Different Connotations of the Word “Ghetto”)

by: Erin Pembroke

1/03/2011

            Have you ever wondered what a person meant when they used the word “ghetto” or asked yourself where did the word come from?” Have you ever noticed that a person can use it in a sentence to mean something else? Several words like the word “ghetto” have many different meanings and connotations that are used every day. Ergo, allowing people to get lost at the suggestive or implied meaning of the sentence.

            According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary online, the etymology of the word “ghetto” derived from the Italian (Venetian) dialect on gheto island where Jews were forced to live. The Italian word came from the infinitive word, ghetar, meaning to cast. This word actually came from the Latin word, jactare, meaning to throw and was first used in 1611.

            Basically, the word was originally used to mean a section of a city in which Jews were required to live. However, later on, it meant a part of a city where members of a minority group live based on social, economic or legal pressure. While still retaining the second denotation, the word can also have a connotation that can be used as an adjective or adverb. According to the Urban Dictionary online, the word can also be an adjective or adverb for cheapness.

            While some people do not entirely agree with this version of Urban Dictionary's definition of the word, some people may agree with another that have been researched in this essay. A commentator by the pseudonym, Destardi, said on June 17, 2006 on Urban Dictionary said that [ghetto] “is also a way of thinking and behavior evolved from living in a physical ghetto.” The author of this post goes on to add, “People also associate the word ghetto as a condition, with people, objections and behavior that is not considered 'acceptable', or 'proper' by mainstream society.” For example, “Girl, you look ghetto.” Look at the different usage of the word between these two sentences: “I live in the ghetto,” versus “Why you gotta act ghetto all the time?” One is an area or place and the other is an adjective for a type of behavior.

            Now, that we have distinguished the one denotation and one connotation within that word, it is time to describe how people in modern pop-culture would describe, define and use the word ghetto. Behaviors, attitudes, mannerisms and actions such as these are usually be associated with the word: people that want to be or practice being gangsters or thugs, people that yell instead of talking in the middle of the street, people that broadcast their personal business in public, and taking pride in being broke. Other behaviors and actions include: flashing money that you do not have, taking high priority or having an expensive car, house or clothes without having a job or a job that will support your living style, and people that run from the police for no reason. Additional attitudes and actions include: wearing house slippers outside the house, wearing hair rollers and shower caps outside on the streets and replacing a broken window with a trash-bag and duct-tape.

            Ghetto can also be described as trying to dress or look the part such as wearing gold teeth, a durag (a cloth head covering), baggy shirts or baggy pants with the underwear showing. A ghetto people can also wear expensive shoes and jewelry, speak in slang or Ebonics and live in places with high crime rates or places where drugs are illegally sold and prostitutes roam the streets at night. The typical actions and life-style choices I have noticed are: woman getting pregnant while still young and the father of the baby disappears out of the child's life forever, guys making indecent and lewd passes at women with no regard to how a woman will react or feel and dropping out of secondary school at an early age (usually by the age of 15 or 16 years old) or they simply lack in education. Ghetto also means living in “the projects” (a low-income, neglected, and impoverished area) where it is dimly lit, vermin/critters are abundant and roam, elevators smell like urination and often break down and rape occurs.

            However, the term ghetto is mistakenly used to refer to “black people” or “black” culture. Thus, making it have a second connotation. It should be noted that the listener needs to have pragmatic competence with the pragmatic word “ghetto” in order to avoid confusion as to what the speaker is talking about or what the speaker means. For instance, “She is acting ghetto” or “Stop being ghetto” in linguistic semantics equates to, she is acting “black” and stop being “black.” This is used on a person who is seen act acting “black” when they are clearly of another ethnicity and race such as Caucasian or Asian. From a “black” person's perspective, they generally view Caucasian or “white” people as people that should act proper, decent, and at times a bit stuck up and when they see a “white” person that acts or tries to act “black” they get offended and believe that the person should stop acting this way.  Basically, this new “ghetto” attitude in a “white” person is a paradox or an oxymoron to the “black” community.

            It is a new behavior that “blacks” are now seeing that they have not seen in decades or centuries before in a “white” person or a person of another ethnicity and race. The reverse can also happen where a “black” person is called an “Oreo” or “white” for being “'black' on the outside and 'white' on the inside.” This idiom's denotatum is that a person's skin color is black, dark brown or any other shade of brown while their personality, behavior and mannerisms are proper and decent (or called “white” behavior). It should be noted that calling a “black” person an “Oreo” is an offense as well as generalizing or saying that all “blacks” are ghetto because it is not true.

            To conclude, the word “ghetto” two denotations and two connotations. The two denotations include: an area where Jews were forced to live and a section of a city where members of a minority group live based on certain circumstances while the two connotations of the word “ghetto” refer to cheapness and “black” culture or people. Ghetto can also be described as low-income, low-educated and impoverished areas where people retain a certain way of thinking and behavior based on their physical ghetto. It is also an image in hip-hop culture where people wear baggy clothes and buy the most expensive objects while maintaining a certain attitude or behavior.