Words


I mean what I say and I say what I mean

I believe that when I speak or write, there's a piece of me and my passion that gets embedded in those words, just waiting for an unsuspecting brain to come along and release the emotion. So when I am feeling really depressed, I don't talk or write about magick much.

It actually goes a little further than that. It's one of my personal quirks, and probably one of the things that marks me closely. You see, I don't use casual profanity.

Now part of this comes back to my feelings about gods. I can't exactly damn something without naming a god. More importantly, I don't think a Name should be invoked casually. That would make it profane in my eyes, and probably Theirs as well. That's why it was called profanity.

Then we move into vulgarity. I don't do that much either. I believe that the words lose their impact if the words are used without thought. Let's face it, are you really going to pay attention to someone saying "fuck" if that's every third or fourth word they say? Then there's Stephen King's example, "Oh shit, I stepped in doggy doo-doo." Let's face it, that loses something in the translation.

I'd like to say I came to this conclusion because of my ultimate *ahem* wisdom and understanding. But that would be rationalizing. Most of it came from my parent's lessons when I was young. They didn't discourage profanity and vulgarity because it was bad, although they did say it was. They discouraged it because it was a lazy way and an example of sloppy thinking.

Now I have to throw some background in there. Dad was from Arkansas, and you could certainly hear the accent with all the relatives. But Dad also sometimes worked part time as a classical radio announcer, and he had trained himself so that his accent sounded almost perfectly Midwest. My "normal" speaking voice is a near clone of what his was, and I have done a little announcing myself.

Mom was born in Louisiana and had a fairly strong accent herself up until she entered college. She was the first in her family to attend, much less graduate. She was embarrassed when she discovered classical music and started asking for records at the library. At the time, she was also a bit on the outs with her parents because her choice of school and career wasn't something of which my grandparents approved.

So words properly used were something that my parents took seriously.

And I was a Reader with a capital "R." Self-taught, ravenous, and not all that particular about what I read. Spiderman mixed in with Asimov, Twain mixed in with cereal boxes (yes, cereal boxes). Conan Doyle mixed in with the newspaper comic page. Playboy mixed in with Popular Science.

You know, to this day the only three magazines I still buy are Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and MacWorld.

So I learned very early that Words Mean Something and that the right words at the right time Can Change the World. It's something that I still believe strongly.

Liberal use of the word shit can make your thoughts exactly that.

So for what it's worth, here's a nickel's worth of free advice. Take the time to remove most of the vulgarity from your everyday words. Not only will it stretch your brain, but it will help other people listen to the thoughts behind your words.

Posted: Tue - July 21, 2009 at 02:31 PM
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