THE MISUSE OF WORDS (PART I)

I was an English major in college and a lover of words long before that. I suppose it began somewhere between my first words – dad, bye, wallpaper – and my first books – Dr. Seuss' Foot Book and the Little House on the Prairie series.

Since coming home from Lithuania, I've been noticing how brazen Americans are with their words – not just the sound and volume of them, but how often we speak and how carelessly. We share with anyone and everyone who will listen, even strangers in line at airport customs or at dirty bus stations. Lithuanians are very reserved, and most Americans, on first meeting a Lithuanian, would be very put off by them, call them rude. But Lithuanians are not more proportionally rude or mean than Americans; in fact, they weigh words well, much more graciously than we often do, and they don't waste them on anyone. If they have something to say, it's probably important. I have a hunch that it may come from living in a more frugal place where people use every inch of space in their flats, where money is tight, where food goes farther and is never wasted, where one word could be the life or death of you only twenty years ago.

Words. I have a feeling we rarely use them the way we were made to use them....and there are a thousand different posts one could write on our misuse of words. I am trying to use them better all the time. Somehow I feel that, when I care more about the way words are said and how much and which ones, I am more caring and careful toward the things to which they refer – family, cat, sky, community, truth, road, bean.

Many posts on words shall follow this one, but, for now, I'll just say this: We say words very incautiously, very inattentively, very badly very often. And the most hurtful thing is, we sometimes tell truth in this way as well. I am beginning to think that telling the truth badly is one of the most foulsome ways we spend words.

To be expounded on at a more decent hour.

Thanks for reading.