You may be one of those people who have an eye for details that even the most subtle of details can barely escape your grasp. Maybe you have noticed things in literary works like connotations as well. If so then you are aware that connotations are those words that describe something, someone, or someplace, and the way those words are used can imply multiple interpretations; less the author or speaker would follow up on what they mean by what is read or heard. So if you’re familiar with connotations then you would also know that there are usually positive and negative types of connotations.
Positive connotations are those descriptive words that put the subject in a positive light and make them seem that they have a quality about them that is to be desired. Negative connotations are of course the opposite of the positive ones; so they basically ridicule, tease, or put the subject in a negative light and point out a quality that they have that is something that is generally unwanted. But there is a third kind of connotation and it is one that is between the positive and the negative types of connotations: It is called the neutral connotation. Neutral connotations are those descriptive words that don’t have positive or negative implication; basically devoid of most emotions or the author or speaker has no strong attachment to those words.
While positivity and negativity in words are mostly what people would consider connotations due to the emotions or the associations connected to the words that were used, neutral connotations are actually quite often used in most literary works or in examples of speech but they are however tricky to notice since it is like they are hiding in plain sight due to how common it is being used all the time. We, humans, have adapted to using neutral connotations without ever noticing it all this time.
Neutral connotations for writers and speakers would allow them to create a context that would show that they have a neutral stance regarding the subject that they are referring to and have no emotional or any form of association with it. While their words may lose some sense of uniqueness, ruggedness, variety, or anything of the sort to it, it would also be possible for it to add a sort of sense of mystique about their view on the matter. A connotation is subjective by default so it can also be up to the reader or the one hearing the speaker if they want to add their own form of interpretation to those words despite being in neutral form.
When you are writing about something and you are conflicted as to what kind of light you would like to shed about the subject that you are writing about, then you can use neutral connotations instead of flipping a coin over positive or negative connotations. It will save you time and effort and it may be able to make your content have a better flow as opposed to if you were using a negative or positive connotation. You will also be able to hide any sort of favoritism for any characters and remain ambiguous on the matter so as not to sound too obvious to those who will read your work in the future.
There will be instances where it would be necessary for you to use either a positive or negative connotation on your work or in your speech since you will need to emphasize a sort of emotion that will give depth to your characters or you would have to give an example of an instance wherein there needs to be an emotion to your connotations and neutral ones are devoid of any such emotions or associations.