I have a student this year whose last name is pronounced “Rude” and I can’t help but feel a sort of automatic kinship with him. It’s not easy growing up being Rude or Gross. I am sure he has heard plenty of similar lame jokes over the years (example: What’s your middle name – “Is”?)<\/p>\n\n\n
Recently, after discussing connotation and denotation in my classes, I wondered if there was any sense of “gross” that would have a positive connotation. If it’s been too long since your last English class, I will happily remind you that “denotation” just means dictionary definition, while “connotation” is what associations people have with the word. For example, “relaxed” has a positive connotation while “lazy” has a negative connotation, even though the two words have a similar denotation of “nothing is getting done”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
“Gross” has a very<\/b><\/i> negative connotation 95% of the time: “Disgusting!”<\/p>\n\n\n
And the only other common usage has a neutral connotation at best: a gross can signify “a dozen dozen”, i.e. 144.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
There’s also “Gross Domestic Product” and “gross earnings before taxes”. And “high grossing films”, which is fairly positive. But then again, there’s such a thing as “gross injustice’.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I was about to give up, but then a version of “gross” with a positive connotation dawned on me: “engross”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
“To occupy one’s mind completely”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Finally!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It connects with this quote from A.W. Tozer I came across recently: “We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
We are meant to be ENGROSSED in the Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n
That’s not only a good thing, that’s the BEST thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
(And, I will have you note, “engross” is embedded in my larger name: Stev-engross. I can live with THAT<\/i>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a student this year whose last name is pronounced “Rude” and I can’t help but feel a sort of automatic kinship with him. It’s not easy growing up being Rude or Gross. I am sure he has heard plenty of similar lame jokes over the years (example: What’s your middle name – “Is”?) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6480,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479\/revisions\/6480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}