A Few Words About Words
Words are interesting. Sometimes words are meaningful and sometimes meaningless.
Olives are “flavorful.” I hear the word “flavorful” a lot on the Food Network.
There is no doubt that olives are indeed flavorful. However, the primary problem with olives is that they are flavorful. Full of the flavor of olives. I
know many people love olives and I am sure most of these people are perfectly good people. But I have to question their judgment. Because they love olives. I don’t believe olive fans truly like olives.
Because if they did, they would refer to olives as “tasty.” Tasty is a word we use for things that are really good. Like a nice wine.Like a good steak. Like a good hot fudge topping.
These things are tasty. Olives are merely flavorful.
Some time ago, I told a friend I did not live olives. Turns out he grew olives for a living. He was not offended that I did not like olives.
But he challenged me. He said that if I ate 8 olives, by the eighth olive I would love olives.
I responded that while that may be true, I would still suffer through the seven olives of hell.
Olives are flavorful. Full of the flavor of olives. They are not tasty. How we discuss olives depends on the words we use.
Another word we use and overuse is “like.” It was “like cold” when I went to the “like restaurant” and bought “like lunch.”
My daughter used to say “like” a lot. I started challenging her on the word. When she asked if I “like wanted lunch” I started responding,
“When you say, ‘like want lunch’, are you asking me if I am planning to simulate wanting lunch, going through the motions of wanting lunch? Because that’s what it sounds like when you include “like” in that sentence.”
It’s ‘like cold.’ Is the outside world a simulation of cold or actually cold?
Is it “like cold” or actually cold? Yes, “like” is overused. It is used in lieu of a creative thought. Instead of finding a good analogy for “cold’—instead of a clever
visualization of cold, we say “like cold.” Cliches are also annoying—“cold as ice” is overused and has no benefit to those trying to visualize.
In fact, 645 years ago, a guy named Phillippe from Venice said in the language appropriate to Venice that it was “hot as hell.” People laughed approvingly at
this novel, brilliant visualization. Hell is hot and it was indeed hot that day. A cliche was born 645 years ago. The phrase is long past its usefulness and is now correctly viewed as dull.
Cliches are overused and share so little.
I made up the entire story about where “hot as hell” came from, but it’s believable. That’s how old that cliche seems.
So cliches are what we use when we have no clever ways to visualize “hot as….” “cold as….” “dull as…”.
“Like” is another oral choice we make when we can’t create a clever way to say “we’re hungry as….” “we’re bored as…” We are like bored which makes us like hungry.
Word choices matter and they say something about us.
When speaking to some students about the events of October 7, I reminded the students that in discussions of the events of the day, words matter.
I told them, “When you discuss these events with anybody, please remember a few things. The Palestinians and Muslims did not attack Israel. Hamas did.
The Jews did not attack Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces did. To blame the Palestinians, the Muslims or the Jews is inaccurate and will spread hate.
We can share information or we can share hate. It depends on the words we use.”
The tone of this essay changed dramatically in the previous paragraph. Due to my word choices and topics I brought up.
The unifying theme of all of this is that our word choice matters. Whether we are expressing the outdoor temperature or a war being fought far away.
How we describe something says a lot about us. Our word choices serve to teach and share and suggest how others should express themselves.
What is at stake changes by the paragraph. By the sentence. The words we choose matter.
