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In my younger, more arrogant days, I fancied myself a champion of the sanctity of language. There were, I felt, too many words that had had their meanings blanded and bleached by overuse, by careless bandying and reckless implementation by hyperbolic fools wishing to make unwarranted and erroneous impressions upon their hapless, if equally guilty, listeners. As one who has, his entire life, championed the art of lingual communication as the sole vehicle of societal elevation, I fashioned myself as one exquisitely pained by this practice.
Yeah. I was an idiot.
I singled out words I felt were too powerful to be callously left to this practice of foul dilution: "love", "hate", "friend". I resolved to never use these words idly; I told myself that I, at least, would reserve such profound labels for the sole objects they truly represented. I began to condition myself, at first, against using the word "love" in the vernacular: "I love this band." "I love eating at this restaraunt." "I love..." I would catch myself in the act of saying these things and stop, collect myself, and replace the revered verb with a less emphatic, but perhaps somewhat lexiphanic selection. "I enjoy this band." "I am enamored of this restaraunt." I made myself sound like a pompous ass, now that I think about it. A boorish lout who imagined himself educated. Or, perhaps, wanted to be percieved as educated by his peers so that he could command an illusion of respect...or at least avoid blatant derision.
"Hate" was my next project. It was easier, I found, than "love" had been -- simply because I did in fact hate so many things in life that I wasn't overusing the word all that much to begin with. But this is a topic for another post. Well, most of my other posts. Okay, all of my other posts. Happy?
Finally, I came to the word "friend." This wasn't much of a challenge, since I had so very few friends to begin with (doubtlessly most were repulsed by my pretentious lingual elitism), but I pressed on regardless. I used the word "acquaintance" a lot. I used the words "associate", "colleague" and "peer" a lot. (I sounded like an ersatz business executive.) I reserved the designation of "friend" for those I felt had earned it, whether by demonstrations of loyalty or comiseration, or any other such arbitrary standard.
What I failed to realize, being so young and stupid, was this:
LANGUAGE IS NOT SACRED.
Words are meaningless. They're collections of sounds, meant to represent one thing or another. Any word can mean anything to anyone. The word "love", when I use it, conjures for me a sense of deep emotional attachment, a need to place another's desires and dreams alongside my own, to entwine and immerse and conjoin with another being. In one sense. In another sense, it means I like some band a lot. In yet another sense, it means I can't play tennis for shit. The point is, it's just a syllable. Just a sound. Love. It starts out innocuously enough, the 'L' spilling forward from the tongue as though it were a precursor to an avalanche of deep and profound meaning. Then, from this seductive prelude, the 'O' follows and drags the word into the realm of insipid pronunciation: one is left with a dull sound wheezing from their throat, a formless noise that recalls the inane mutterings of someone unable to think of a word they want to say. From this disappointment, the 'V' sallies forth, bravely attempting to salvage the whole mess with a faintly sibilant injection of a halfhearted consonant; and by the time we've finally gotten to the end of the word, the 'E' has simply given up and refuses to say anything at all.
But does it mean anything, in the end? Sure. It means affection, and sex, and tennis scores. It means whatever you want it to, really. (Incidentally, the use of the word "love" to indicate zero in the game of tennis comes from a vernacular transliteration from the French: the word "l'oeuf", meaning "egg", was jokingly used to convey the score of zero. English players heard the word, and thus philological history was born.) But this is only one example: there are thousands, even millions of words in the English language alone that have multiple meanings, and more words are being bastardized every day with the use of popular slang. It's all changing constantly. To think, as I foolishly did, that some words could or should be above this practice is an exercise in futility.
Have I become wiser, with the years? Maybe. I don't care anymore, for instance, if someone I barely know calls me their "friend" even though they may not know my last name. I know what they mean. If someone I know says they "hate" another person, I don't call them on it. I know what they mean. The meaning is important. It's the passenger, not the vehicle, that matters.
So...
Yeah. Out of words now.
Yeah. I was an idiot.
I singled out words I felt were too powerful to be callously left to this practice of foul dilution: "love", "hate", "friend". I resolved to never use these words idly; I told myself that I, at least, would reserve such profound labels for the sole objects they truly represented. I began to condition myself, at first, against using the word "love" in the vernacular: "I love this band." "I love eating at this restaraunt." "I love..." I would catch myself in the act of saying these things and stop, collect myself, and replace the revered verb with a less emphatic, but perhaps somewhat lexiphanic selection. "I enjoy this band." "I am enamored of this restaraunt." I made myself sound like a pompous ass, now that I think about it. A boorish lout who imagined himself educated. Or, perhaps, wanted to be percieved as educated by his peers so that he could command an illusion of respect...or at least avoid blatant derision.
"Hate" was my next project. It was easier, I found, than "love" had been -- simply because I did in fact hate so many things in life that I wasn't overusing the word all that much to begin with. But this is a topic for another post. Well, most of my other posts. Okay, all of my other posts. Happy?
Finally, I came to the word "friend." This wasn't much of a challenge, since I had so very few friends to begin with (doubtlessly most were repulsed by my pretentious lingual elitism), but I pressed on regardless. I used the word "acquaintance" a lot. I used the words "associate", "colleague" and "peer" a lot. (I sounded like an ersatz business executive.) I reserved the designation of "friend" for those I felt had earned it, whether by demonstrations of loyalty or comiseration, or any other such arbitrary standard.
What I failed to realize, being so young and stupid, was this:
LANGUAGE IS NOT SACRED.
Words are meaningless. They're collections of sounds, meant to represent one thing or another. Any word can mean anything to anyone. The word "love", when I use it, conjures for me a sense of deep emotional attachment, a need to place another's desires and dreams alongside my own, to entwine and immerse and conjoin with another being. In one sense. In another sense, it means I like some band a lot. In yet another sense, it means I can't play tennis for shit. The point is, it's just a syllable. Just a sound. Love. It starts out innocuously enough, the 'L' spilling forward from the tongue as though it were a precursor to an avalanche of deep and profound meaning. Then, from this seductive prelude, the 'O' follows and drags the word into the realm of insipid pronunciation: one is left with a dull sound wheezing from their throat, a formless noise that recalls the inane mutterings of someone unable to think of a word they want to say. From this disappointment, the 'V' sallies forth, bravely attempting to salvage the whole mess with a faintly sibilant injection of a halfhearted consonant; and by the time we've finally gotten to the end of the word, the 'E' has simply given up and refuses to say anything at all.
But does it mean anything, in the end? Sure. It means affection, and sex, and tennis scores. It means whatever you want it to, really. (Incidentally, the use of the word "love" to indicate zero in the game of tennis comes from a vernacular transliteration from the French: the word "l'oeuf", meaning "egg", was jokingly used to convey the score of zero. English players heard the word, and thus philological history was born.) But this is only one example: there are thousands, even millions of words in the English language alone that have multiple meanings, and more words are being bastardized every day with the use of popular slang. It's all changing constantly. To think, as I foolishly did, that some words could or should be above this practice is an exercise in futility.
Have I become wiser, with the years? Maybe. I don't care anymore, for instance, if someone I barely know calls me their "friend" even though they may not know my last name. I know what they mean. If someone I know says they "hate" another person, I don't call them on it. I know what they mean. The meaning is important. It's the passenger, not the vehicle, that matters.
So...
Yeah. Out of words now.
