words

Sometimes it scares me just how much a sentence of words strung together can touch me. It's a testament to writers, of course, that they can manipulate letters and words in a way that evokes emotions in readers... and not in just one way; from those many hours of English Literature classes I know that sentences affect people in a various ways. Isn't it strange? That one sentence written by one author can affect so many different people in unique ways.

It's just words, they're just words and they can mean so much and do so much. I like the way certain words sound and I like the way there are some words I just love saying... you should really try saying monosyllabic* out loud. I think it's ironic that the word xenophobic sounds so pretty but represents such an ugly and common fear. Then there are words that I just can't stand. Is there a need for words like peng and buff to exist? They feel horrible to say and they're just cheaper ways of saying words like lovely.

It's not just words on their own though. I like that a lot of the time when a word fits in a sentence you can't find a synonym that can work in it's place in quite the same way. But sometimes even if I try super hard I can't seem to find the right word to label a feeling or a thing and it's strange to think their are limits to this language... that sometimes the word just doesn't exist. If I could have any super power it would definitely be the ability to speak all languages (if I could have three it would also be telekinesis and teleporting... just in case you were wondering). Sometimes there are words and phrases, names of things and feelings, in one language that just don't translate into other languages. Take the french expression l'esprit de l'escalier which is the feeling of leaving a conversation and then realising the things you wanted to say. I'm not saying there aren't enough words in English but sometimes it feels it would be easier to express my thoughts if I knew them all.

There are so many words in just English, there are so many I haven't come across yet but even with all these words at my disposal, there are a number of times that I ramble for minutes upon minutes without really saying what I wanted to. I appreciate words a great deal but I think I'd like to learn to use them better.

"It's funny how that works. Sometimes not speaking says more than all the words in the world." - Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

"She was intelligent but inarticulate. Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world." - I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan

All my love, Sadia x

*Isn't it so fab that the word monosyllabic isn't monosyllabic??