To Harm or To Heal

Writing has always been a personal passion. For years I didn't even dare really do it consistently in dread of bringing down the wrath of my ex who would pick apart and demean everything.

When I was younger it was my mother - and I wouldn't write except when I had to because my diaries were opened and made fun of and journals became frustrating when I learned I had to edit myself to keep secrets. Teachers would read my words and evaluate them. But every day what we write & say is being evaluated by the hearts and minds of those who hear them, as well as the One who hears everything.

I believe words have energy. In my Torah classes we often discuss how something was written, why it was used once or twice, how the sentence was constructed and its deeper meaning. No matter how many times we read passages, I still find something new in them. And Gematria breaks down the numerical value of words and names to their cosmic elements and energy.

How we use language can inform, irreparably harm or heal.

"Abuse of truth ought to be as much punishment as the introduction of falsehood," - Pascal.

Words are used against us by media, politicians, other people, bullies and those who exploit the frailty of others. Words can be used for us in power documents like the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Always tell the truth and mind your words. Are you opening your mouth or using your keyboard to spread anger, hate & frustration? Or do you hope to inform, bring light and stir minds & hearts?

Words do have power - ask yourself how will you use the responsibility of that power. - Barbara

 

Feeling Our Words

Words Have Weight

Words carry energy and this gives language its power and its potential to heal or hurt.

Most of us can remember a time that someone sent a word our way, and it stuck with us. It may have been the first time we received a truly accurate compliment, or the time a friend or sibling called us a name, but either way it stuck. This experience reminds us that what we say has weight and power and that being conscious means being aware of how we use words.

The more conscious we become, the more we deepen our relationship to the words we use so that we speak from a place of actually feeling what we are saying. We begin to recognize that words are not abstract, disconnected entities used only to convey meaning; they are powerful transmitters of feeling.

You might want to practice noticing how the words you say and hear affect your body and your emotional state. Notice how the different communication styles of the people in your life make you feel. Also, watch closely to see how your own words come out and what affect they have on the people around you.

You may notice that when we speak quickly, without thinking, or rush to get our ideas across, our words don't carry the same power as when we speak slowly and confidently, allowing those receiving our words time and space to take them in. When we carefully listen to others before we speak, our words have more integrity, and when we take time to center ourselves before speaking, we truly begin to harness the power of speech.

Then our words can be intelligent messengers of healing and light, transmitting deep and positive feelings to those who receive them.

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At the end of World War II the Allies Powers sent a message to the Japanese demanding surrender. The Japanese responded with the word mokusatsu, which translates as either "to ignore" or "to withhold comment". The Japanese meant that they wished to withhold comment, to discuss and then decide. The Allies translated mokusatsu as the Japanese deciding to ignore the demand for surrender. The Allies therefore ended the war by dropping the bomb and transforming the world we live in forever.

The effect that words can have is incredible: to inform, persuade, hurt or ease pain, end war or start one, kill thousands or even millions of people. They can get your point across, or destroy any hope of your ideas ever being understood.

A major element of advertising is the words, which ones and in what order. The following is a discussion of words and how to use them to the greatest effect in advertising.

THE POWER OF WORDS
by Richard F. Taflinger

When using words, one of the major considerations must be how to achieve the most impact upon your audience. If the words chosen do not have an effect then there really isn't much point in saying or writing them. How then do you get the most impact from your words?

First, let us examine the ways in which words can have an impact. Each word has two definitions, the denotative and the connotative. The denotative meaning is basically the dictionary meaning, the one that almost anyone can understand who speaks or desires to speak the language.

For example, take the word "chair". It has a denotative meaning: a piece of furniture designed for one person to sit upon. Anybody can point at such a piece of furniture and the audience will respond with "chair" (or whatever word means "a piece of furniture designed for one person to sit upon" in their language). It is this denotative meaning students learn in foreign language classes so they will know the word "chaise" means "chair" in French.

However, of greater importance, particularly in advertising, is the connotative definition, the definition each individual conjures up in rher mind in response to hearing or reading the word. That definition can be denotative in effect, but strictly individual.

For example, someone hearing the word chair will rarely think "a piece of furniture designed for one person to sit upon." Instead they will imagine what they consider a chair. It could be a desk chair, a Queen Anne wing chair, a dining room chair, or whatever image appears before the mind's eye representing to that person a "chair". This is not a specific image common to all, but a general concept dependent on the individual.

This is why people use modifiers like adjectives and adverbs: they narrow the general concept to one specific to the speaker's intent. Thus, when the speaker has an image of a wing chair, rhe adds the modifier "wing". This prevents the audience thinking of a desk chair. Thus the connotative definition of a word can be denotative in effect.

However, of far more importance is that the connotative meaning of a word can have a strong emotional content. In other words, the audience can respond emotionally rather than intellectually to hearing or reading a word. For example, let us take the word "snake". The denotative definition, a cold-blooded, legless reptile, has little emotional content. The connotative definition, however, can have a strong impact, depending on the individual's perception of a snake. It could be a cool, dry, pest eliminator, or a cold, slimy, yucky monster.

Another example is "spider". As you, dear reader, read this word, what was your response? Did you think "an eight-legged arachnid"? Or did you have another, emotional response, perhaps "a silent pest-killer" or "a creepy, crawly, hairy beastie, yuck, keep-it-away-from-me, kill it"? Whichever response you had, it is your individual connotation, your emotional response to the word.

Why is this difference between the denotative and connotative definitions of words of such importance? It is because the greatest impact of words comes from using the connotative meanings to affect the audience's emotional response. One reason for this is that you cannot argue away emotions because they do not respond to logic. Thus if you can make your audience agree with your point of view on an emotional level, your competition's logical arguments won't sway them about why they shouldn't feel that way.

An example that just about everybody can relate to: you're in love; he-she-it is the most wonderful, perfect person in the world, flawless, faultless ("love is blind" is not only a cliche, it is a truism). Then he-she-it dumps you; tears, wailing, depression, etc., ensues. Your friends gather around and tell you that he-she-it is a jerk, a poltroon, not worth the tears, that he-she-it does not deserve the trauma through which you are putting yourself. You nod, agree, then you burst into tears anew, exclaiming "but I can't help it, this is how I feel." All the logical arguments in the world about why you shouldn't feel bad about being dumped have no effect on your emotions. That's how you feel.

That you cannot argue away emotions is only one of the reasons that connotations have impact. Another is that abstract words are almost entirely defined by their connotations. Abstract words such as truth, beauty, and justice mean what the individual feels they mean. There is no reference that can point to as a concrete example. Thus, abstractions affect most people emotionally.

If, therefore, you can make a discussion of abstractions emotional by personalizing or anthropomorphizing them, they can have a greater impact. Moliere used this idea in his play TARTUFFE. He personalized religious hypocrisy, the cloaking of vice in a mantle of virtue, in the character of Tartuffe, a quite unpleasant person. Thus, if you don't like Tartuffe, an attitude difficult to avoid, you won't like what he stands for.

Another element of words that's important is that there are concrete and fuzzy words. Concrete words are those that have definite referents. That is, you can point at an example of what you mean by that word.

For example, when you say the word "chair," you can point at the concrete item, a chair, to clarify your meaning to your listener. Concrete words have definite denotative meanings, and often have weak emotional connotations.

Fuzzy words are those that have no concrete referents, for which there is no object that can be pointed at to clarify what the speaker means. Fuzzy words can mean whatever you think they mean, and thus can mean different things to different people. For example, one fuzzy word is "beauty." Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, is dependent on culture, and changes from time to time and person to person. Other fuzzy words include "justice," which can mean anything from equality before the law to the vendetta, and "truth," which depends on how you view the world, what you know (or think you know), what others tell you, etc., etc., ad nauseam. The thing that is clear is that fuzzy words are virtually all connotation, with their denotative meanings dependent on who is defining them.

For example, Samuel Johnson, who wrote one of the first dictionaries in 1755, "defined a patron as 'one who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.'" (Bryson, 1990, pg. 153)

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