Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: March 20, 2023 07:48PM
Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> I do not believe Holland wanted gay people killed.
> But his choice of metaphor was highly
> irresponsible.
Words matter!
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.” Maya Angelou
“Words: So innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Language creates reality. Words have power. Speak always to create joy.” Deepak Chopra
“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.” John Keating
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” Mother Teresa
“Words have magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.” Sigmund Freud
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I agree about metaphor. We can't count on everybody all the time understanding everything. That's why context is crucially important too. But in the heat of some moments careful attention to one's language choices is paramount if it's essential to be accurately understood.
If people are riled up already they can easily miss a metaphor and take the actual words at face value. Or, as said above, metaphorical phrases just sail over the heads of some people.
The onus is largely on the speaker to ensure their words are understood as intended.
Topic, audience, purpose, all must be clear.
There are many occasions and venues, particularly in our current day, when militant language is not being understood as only metaphoric, for various reasons.
Words are not innocuous. They can hurt and wound severely. As we've seen this applies to society as well as to people.
Below is a bit of a tangent from the main subject but the principle is similar. And I always like to remind that Words Hurt. The following article applies to words spoken in interactions between humans in families and other groups but the principles have a wider application too, as in the example in the topic of this thread. The common thread is that words have power and we should wield them with care. It doesn't seem that responsible these days to use inflammatory and/or militant language, served either straight up or inside "only a metaphor".
From Psychology Today: Words hurt by Peg Streep (August 2015)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/tech-support/201308/why-words-can-hurt-least-much-sticks-and-stonesExcerpts:
“Words hurt just like sticks and stones.
“We all know this, despite the adage. When I was writing Mean Mothers, women who were victims of “just” verbal abuse often commented that they wished they’d been hit so that “their wounds and scars would show.” In a series of studies, Martin Teicher M.D., Ph.D. and others have shown that there are physical and emotional consequences of “just” verbal abuse. In one study, the researchers found that the effects of parental verbal aggression were comparable to “those associated witnessing domestic violence or nonfamilial sexual abuse.” In fact, verbal aggression produced larger effects than familial physical abuse. There’s evidence too that exposure to verbal abuse in childhood actually alters the structure of the brain. That was also borne out in another study by Teicher and his colleagues called Hurtful Words. What the researchers found was that especially during the middle school years, when the brain is actively developing, exposure to peer bullying and verbal abuse caused changes to the white matter in the brain.”
“Just because we can’t see the wounds doesn’t mean they aren’t literally and physically there.”
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That is beyond fascinating - to think of words having such great impact that they can change the physical structure of one's brain - but it's also completely heartbreaking to consider this type of literal injury, as well as other kinds, in cases of abuse that we know abound in this world.
The power of speech is tremendous and having a receptive audience should compel leaders and speakers to think about their language choices. It's a bit late after the fires have been lit to say my (inflammatory) comments are only metaphors!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2023 07:52PM by Nightingale.