Daily prompt: Sound right

Tags

meaning, postaday2014, sounds, words

This is clearly subjective, but some words really sound like the thing they describe (personal favorites: puffin; bulbous; fidgeting). Do you have an example of such a word (or, alternatively, of a word that sounds like the exact opposite of what it refers to)? What do you think creates this effect?

The first word that popped in my head was nubile; a very sexy word in my estimation. The next word that followed was languish, staccato slipped into next place; these three beautiful words fit very nicely between sound and meaning. Then I thought about fast and slow.

I pondered the words fast and slow, thinking does the word slow sound slow? Does fast sound fast? Do they sound right only because I know what they mean and does it makes sense only because those words are ingrained indelibly with those meanings?

In French the word for fast is vite and the word for slow is lent; same issue in French as in English; do the words mirror in sound their meaning or is it knowing their meaning that makes the sound make sense?

Words, sound and meaning, I would say that they are all inter-related, I can’t think of an anachronistic relation between sound and meaning in relation to the word. Good topic to think about; it made me appreciate the richness of our vocabulary either in English or French and how lucky I am that I can flip from one to the other. Words are good, where would we be without them?

Daily prompt: Verbal tic

Tags

postaday2014, verbal tics, words

Is there a word or a phrase you use (or overuse) all the time, and are seemingly unable to get rid of? If not, what’s the one that drives you crazy when others use it?

I am not sure if I have any verbal tics; I do say “I don’t know” a lot. I think that it may come from laziness; any easy out so that I don’t have to fatigue my brain by properly engaging in a conversation, or perhaps more to the point, it would be to shy away from any confrontation. When one doesn’t know, one cannot participate and cannot get into anything adverse. I dislike confrontation so much, it is an influential force in my life.

I however do have a thing about picking up on other’s verbal tics. My ear zero’s in on words such as “like” and phrases “you know what I mean” and “you know”. I have a friend who cannot finish a sentence and uses “you know what I mean” to finish his sentences, so I always say “no I don’t know what you mean” to prod him into explaining himself. It is always enlightening, I find that it pushes him to expand his thought process. Often in the jumble of your brain patterns, you may think that you understand something really well, but I have found that to really understand an idea, you should be able to explain it to someone else so that they can understand it as well; they might disagree with you, but they understand the idea that you are discussing.

My entire issue with using the word “like” is that those who use it are seriously shortchanging the English language; there are other words to be used and they are wonderful words. There isn’t a need to substitute “like” for synonyms or other descriptors. We have so many, we really do.

I would recommend reading, reading and more reading to remedy the overuse of “like”. The other phrase “you know what I mean” I think is really all about impatience and rapid fire thinking; I would recommend taking a breath between thoughts and slowing down the conversation.

My verbal issue with the “I don’t know” is to inform whomever I am talking to that I am too exhausted to engage, but I would be happy to sit and listen. However if I am concerned about confrontation then I need to work on that. I know I need to find ways to figure out how to deal with conversations without getting worried that it might get to a confrontational level. Discussions with different opinions are fine and they can be done with understanding and empathy. I need to remember that. Part of that is knowing that I shoudn’t let assumptions dominate my thinking. I need to let go and let nature take its course, I can handle it.

I know that this is a huge part of why I love writing so much; it is so much easier than talking out loud. It isn’t stressful; I have the luxury of time, the luxury of a delete button and the luxury of deciding when to publish or whether to publish. For me, this is communication at its perfection.

Daily prompt: Careless whisper

Tags

hurt feelings, postaday2014, words

It happens: sometimes that filter in our head bursts and we say too much of what we’re thinking and someone gets hurt. Tell us about a time you or someone you know said something that they immediately regretted.

I try very hard to not be hurtful to anyone, I think simply because I know what it feels like to be hurt by another’s words and actions. As soon as I read the prompt, I traveled back in time, though not too far back in time, to my mother-in-law; she had the ultimate talent of hurting people’s feelings without thought, she was notorious for a lack of the filter that governs most people. I had to smooth over quite a few encounters because of her spontaneously lightening fast criticisms.

One of her off the cuff comments that haunts me to this day is what she said about my eyes. Growing up and being insecure about my looks, I used to comfort myself with the notion that even if the whole wasn’t beautiful, I had separate pieces that were nice such as nice lips, thick hair and very pretty eyes. It gave me some measure of confidence to like these features about myself.

One day my mother-in-law was driving myself and the babies down to Westfield. I forget exactly what we were taking about, but it must have had something to do with genetics because I said that the baby boy had my eyes. My mother-in-law took her eyes off the road to face me and say “he doesn’t have your eyes, your eyes are googly, his are beautiful” I was taken aback and didn’t know how to respond. I stayed silent. But did that hurt, those words made me doubt what I had always thought, that my eyes were pretty. It is amazing the power of someone else’s words especially when they are of the negative variety, it is difficult to undo the harm and I think that is why I think long and hard before I speak, I do not want to inflict such pain on another. Who am I to do that? Anyway even if I had responded to my mother-in-law and told her that she had hurt my feelings, she would have said to get over it, she was only telling the truth. I know that for a fact, because I was there when she had said the same thing to others.

What I was always too cowardly to say, was that what she was saying wasn’t the “truth” it was only her opinion. Her opinion did not make it the truth, however in reality I couldn’t have responded in such a manner because it had taken me a long while before I was able to arrive at that conclusion. Though since then, this conclusion has served me very well and opened my eyes to what criticism is really all about, opinions and not necessarily the truth.

For all of my mother-in-law’s quirks I did love her, she was funny and vivacious, she was family and we did have a lot of good times together.

Daily prompt :Three-tenths

Tags

blogging, free thinking, postaday2013, words, writing

Scribble down the first ten words that come to mind. Pick three of them. There’s your post title. Now write!

plane, air-conditioning, coffee, tired, fatigue, university, uncomfortable, travel, airport, grumpy

I am tired, we are in an airport, the baby girl and I and we are both feeling a little uncomfortable. The air-conditioning is on high which is why I am very happy that I wore a long sleeved shirt even though it is summer, airports and airplanes are always too cold for my taste. This will be a short post because I am not yet awake enough to properly address this early morning trip back to Miami to move the baby girl into her new University, sniff, sniff.

Daily prompt: No, thank you

Tags

ban, blogging, postaday2013, words, writing

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

I am trying to think of my word pet peeves and I have a few, the word “ain’t” has long been a peeve of mine and when they decided to allow it into the dictionary, I wasn’t very happy about it. I also cringe when I hear the word “like” used in a sentence several times replacing a myriad of other words to describe whatever is being talked about. I realize that I am not the writer who should be in charge of criticizing others, I know that I make my fair share of mistakes, but I do take the time to try to speak as well as I can, if only because the English language is a pretty one and why shouldn’t it be used to its best advantage?

What else is there? Oh I almost forgot to mention the phrase “you know what I mean?” at the end of a train of thought, as a means to explain the aforementioned thought. I am often tempted to say “No, I don’t know what you mean” if only to move them to explain themselves clearly. My best friend’s husband said it almost at the end of every sentence he uttered and I finally started saying “no, I don’t” I gave up because he simply ignored me after awhile and kept doing it, so I started to tune it out. My poor best friend, the poor dear, after I pointed it out, she couldn’t help but notice and now she is forced to endure it because it drives her nuts as well. I couldn’t believe it, but before I had mentioned it, she hadn’t noticed it, his words just flew right by. I wondered what that meant, did she just agree with him because she was in love or was she not really paying attention because she was too busy, she didn’t have an answer when I asked her about it. After awhile we had a good laugh about it and how you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks. I asked her if we were being too harsh on her husband, she thought for a few minutes about it and said no.