Skip to main content

On words

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.  Jose Saramago

Words are powerful.  We can and we do (at times) use them to heal and encourage.  We can and do (at times) wield them like weapons, our intent to harm or to protect.  But make no mistake, we use words to convey every emotion we experience, every opinion we have, everything we have learned.  Even those who cannot speak audibly use words to communicate the same things, they just do it with their hands or their eyes (ALS, etc).  Without words to express ourselves and let others know what we are thinking we would be lost.  Words help us get to the heart of the matter.  They are the most overused and the most underused.  We overuse them when we should be a little more quiet and we under use them when we don't speak up and let assumptions start to dictate our emotions, etc.  It's a fine line to walk when using words.  Some of us, ahem *grin*, are too wordy and others of us need to speak up a little more.  I read a fun and clever book last year called Ella Minnow Pea about words.  It passed along the message (one of many the author had actually) about the importance of words in our interactions with others.  Pick it up and give it a read if you get a chance.  Words are vital to our relationships, use them wisely.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment. 

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.