Emotive words and timing
I work with words. I read them and write them and sometimes, like a fool, I think I own the exclusive meaning of them.
But, with all the will in the world, a dictionary can not do justice to a word, neither can a persons explanation. And, I still find many people with the same ideology - that they ‘know’ what a word means.
With my NLP hat on, I am reminded of concept that the ‘Map is Not The Territory’. There is some interesting ‘words’ about this on Wikipedia.
So, why the noise from me this morning?
Well, I saw an advert in a paper at the weekend and the first word I saw on the obscure graphic was one word - ‘Heroic’. I looked at the advert some more to decipher what it was for and discovered it was for a triathalete event.
For some reason that word made me a bit cross (a word can make me cross - hut hum). Why? It may have been because my frame of reference at that time was of soldiers in wars, having seen another article about a soldier coming back from Iraq minus a couple of limbs.
Suddenly, that word - herioc - seemed a little puerile considering that it was all about some people choosing to cycle, ride and run in a competitive sport.
In day-to-day conversation, it is sometimes easy to forget the meaning other people place on words that you use and also that time, along with distortions and deletions, can manipulate the meaning of those words for that person.
Tags: Language