After reading this book excerpt entitled How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think? I wondered about how common words with both negative and positive meanings might affect our subconscious mind.
For instance, if a teacher or a student asked the other to clarify their thoughts repeatedly through the day with “what do you mean?” would the subconscious start to interpret “you mean” to be “you [are] unkind” in addition to “you [are] conveying [what idea?]” and thereby building up subconscious resentment and defensiveness towards the other faster than in other languages where this is not a linguistic issue?
Have there been psychological tests done to see if always being careful to use neutral language; such as, “I still do not understand X, please show me again” makes the teachers try more varied lessons, for longer, to teach the student?
I don’t know about the one that you cited (“mean”) but the same kind of consideration has cropped up in social politics where a word (or two words with the same sound or spelling) have very different meanings. It’s the same kind of concern, that on some level people’s minds will connect the two meanings or react to one of the uses a little bit as if the other meaning had been invoked.
• In Spanish, the word for pregnant (embarazada) resembles the English word for embarrassed, prompting worry that, in a context where both languages are in use, it could convey the subliminal message that being pregnant is or should be embarrassing. Which is embarrassingly close to some older attitudes, in fact.
• I forget who wrote it, but there was a feminist short article about “fuck” and how we have this word that means having sex which also means mess something or someone up or hurt or damage them, concluding with the observation that “fuck” works as an inverse euphemism for rape, that it conjures up the combo of violence and sexual behavior and hostility that should be attached to the word rape, which has been rendered more titillating than hostile. I think it was perceived by many as some kind of anti-sex screed but I don’t think the author was offended by anglo-saxon sex terms in general and was making a point about the language in a way similar to what you’re doing with “mean”.
Now that you mention it, I believe that there are many words in Asian languages that can mean wildly different things depending on something which I can’t recall. Maybe tone of voice? I sometimes have wondered if those sets of words tend to be related in any way, or if not how they came to be homonyms.(think that word applies.)