Wednesday, August 18, 2010

REAL WORDS, MADE UP WORDS AND WORDS I DON'T LIKE

Is it possible to love words?  If it is, then I do.  Form or mode of delivery is relatively immaterial to me - words on paper, on a screen, floating through the air enroute to my ears, coming out of my mouth, or in my head.  How do you clearly and distinctly describe someone with words?  My sisters and I wrote down a list of words that describe me.  It went something like this; natural, simple, free, wide-open, cotton, coasting, unencumbered, out of the box, original, irreverent, naughty, funny, risky, unstructured, gritty, improvisable, full of flavor, real, deep, intuiative, quick minded.  We, of course only made the list of positives - time was limited:)  Those words of me paint a picture.  That's why I love words - they give me the ability to see something in my head or feel something inside, to form a thought, an opinion, experience a moment, clearly define something, see someone else's heart or mind, and express from the inside outward.  Words too are catalysts to create more words to think or say.  There are though, words I don't like.  They leave an after taste of overuse or vagueness - like; process, contemplate, path, relationship, lover, dimension, inner being, solidify, facilitate, leadership, signage, monies and sorry.    I am the queen of analogies - pictures to paint in someone's head to not only tell them, but show them what you mean.  Sometimes words hurt, sometimes they heal, sometimes they set us free or teach us - they are though always expressing something. I have an uncle who uses such big unknown words when he writes to me I have to get out the dictionary to translate.  Some people know way more words than others - they have huge vats of them and are constantly bringing out a new fairly unused one.  Texting causes us to use less and less words for ease of communicating.  Sad for a word lover.  Sometimes when I can't quite come up with the exact word I combine words with different endings to create just the right one. Periodically I can fool someone into thinking it's a real word:)  Today someone used their newly created word on me -conversationating- and I loved it!  When I die, I want someone to make sure they write a long quote on my headstone - to salute my love of words!  And, tomorrow to be thoroughly fair in my description of me, I should write my list of negative words that describe me.  Although surely it wouldn't be nearly as lengthy as the positives:) 

1 comment:

Maude said...

I would like to add "plethora" and "issues" to the "love word list." I too have a friend who likes to use a plethora of humungious words in which I just say straight up "I don't even know
what that is man." I feel ppl who have to use words they had to learn in college and no one else understands are trying to hide "issues" in their lives...just sayin...