WORDS: “That Have The Power”

I GUESS AS A WRITER I care about words more than most and while it’s  natural that the new technology such as Facebook and Twitter and the by now almost universally used email encourages us ti use a bunch of words that are colorless and often cut to verbal ribbons-”How R U”,Luv U” or similar – it seems to be a process that is squeezing the life out of language.

I am aware that language is a constantly changing medium – new words and forms arrive, old ones die out. Like life, a great many common words have a brief lifespan before passing away. But English is a beautiful and expressive language that more than most languages can explain through idioms our society to ourselves.

Truncating words into small, common, lifeless little objects, meaningless phrases as if what we have to say and therefore we ourselves are unimportant and worthless seems to me to be a tragic transgression into nowhere. Someone once said we are known by the words we use.

Allow me to talk a little about words, those lovely, jumping, laughing, eager little marks we make on paper or tap onto a screen.

words gather around a proposition or an idea or story willingly. Some wag their tail, others stand back a little shy, but they’ve come to work, some shuffle as they stand in line, others stand to rigid attention while you can almost hear some of them tap dancing. But the big ones and the small ones, the extroverted words and the shy words all want to be part of the action, part of your narrative. They all want to get into the act, all are anxious to make your writing just the very best it can be.

If you love words they force you to use them intelligently, they don’t merely want to show off- in fact, they love working hard. Nothing echoes more loudly than a hallow word or lacks meaning as does a lazy one.

Some words run softly, on tippy-toe almost soundless others clump around as under -14 football team milling around on the cement floor of the dressing shed. Some soothe like cold cream on sunburn while other can set your blood pounding. Expletives are part of our language and they too can be used well or simply wasted, thrown together in a sentence to denote little but an inability to think or pause meaningfully in an attempt to find an appropriate adjective.

There are words so rounded at the edges and softened by wear that they are no longer words at all but sounds that people make for confusion, despair, joy or anger. There are words that randy (old-fashioned word) or sexy but not dirty or foul. And sacred words that have become expletives, there meanings soiled with improper unthinking and careless use.

Some words think like burrs and punish at a touch. They are words we never forget, insults, denigrating words that destroy our egos and sometimes even our lives. But then

“There are also words that nurse the egos and heals the heart.”

They are words joined together in common phrases we barely notice as we employ them in everyday use, yet if you pause a moment to think, they are so beautiful that they elevate the human race. For instance, here is a phrase so common we use it without moment’s through, it is a miracle of invention. How it ever came into being is marvel and mystery. Who was it to first use our language with such finesse? The phrase: “Beyond the shadow of doubt”. Just pause for a moment. Beyond meaning a way ahead, a shadow dark area covering light, a doubt, a hesitancy in belief.

How blithely wee employ this phrase, yet how exquisitely beautiful it is in its through and structure. Our language contains hundreds, perhaps thousands of similar miracle expressions that lead to deeper understanding or emphasis.

Through there are also phrases that clunk,or do for me. Here is one, “I mean this from the bottom of my heart.” In my mind’s eye I see a heart with large bottom and anything, even a sentiment, coming from it is not be trusted. Any person “Heart-bottoming” me is suspect.

There are also phrases that smack you in the mouth. “he was found stone cold dead.” Whack!

“There are some words that remain forever unspoken, clamped in a throat that aches to let them out…”

and often they are the most meaningful words of all.

Words are the most of what we have to solve about everything. The new social media is most powerful medium for words ever invented. It means you can possess an opinion that can reach around the words without the media and government putting a spin to it. Your opinion coupled with countless others can stop wars and destroy tyrants. Use it, if you choose the right word inequity and hardship even poverty can be solved forever.

The choice is ours, words spoken, on the screen, recorded, written, lyrics. If we use them well and care how we put them together, if we think before we open our mouth, tap the computer key and unclip a pen or compose a lyric or write a poem or even a note to the supermarket, we will do more than simply rescue language, we will begin to communicate meaningfully with each other as a collective force that can’t be stopped. When we talk with purpose and pleasure to each other in this marvelous language we have been given our birthright then anything is possible and most of it will be very good.

You are a person with a point of view that counts – use it!

Find the right words and change the world.