A Brief Word on Words

I believe in words; how they sound, where they arise in conversation, in our culture, their regionalism and etymology, how they transmute, evolve, die back, or re-emerge and transfigure. I like to think how they give others access to our inner lives, how they carry our brilliance or stupidity, our magnanimity or pettiness, our selves  or purported selves along with them as they leave our lips, pens, keyboards and wend their way in the world, our verbal diaspora.  Words carry their  meaning, but much more... a single word  can tell the listener where the speaker grew up, their level of education or socio-economic status. Words may not be thoughts, but they’re  the currency of our mind’s realm. I love how words play, tumble, alliterate, separate and re-order, rejoin, and assemble again, finding new meanings, elegance and humor, insight and affect, even humanity in the turn of a phrase. 

Perhaps we might have a word about this sometime.