Highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/dp/0156482401 http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Editi

Highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/dp/0156482401 http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/... Which talks in detail about the "informative" and "affective" connotations of words (it's a lot more entertaining than it sounds). Only slightly related, but I was just reading in the book how we have the terms "light meat" and "dark meat": because ladies and gentleman in 19th century Britain couldn't bring themselves to say "leg", "thigh" or "breast" – even of a chicken!