Making
Words Count ©
By
Michael Casey
Now,
where do I begin, which is a song title, but I’m not talking about songs, just
words. So, which is a Peter Gabriel album, but I’m not talking about him either
as Annie Lennox sings Peace to me. Well I thought I’d talk about making words
count today, and I’m not talking about the Times tables either, and why do grown-ups say “times” instead of
Multiply. And while we are on it, it’s US not Uz as I constantly hear, and when
did a NOUN become an ADJECTIVE, the WALES team beat England, it’s the Welsh
team, though that’s not the best example.
If
you love words as much as I do then you too will be annoyed by the BBC and
other Media butchering the language. Words do count, each has a meaning and a
method to it, that makes a story better or worse, for richer or poorer, or just
divorced from the facts. A story badly told is just that, bad. A story well
told holds the reader or viewer. Even if it’s really complicated, if it’s
explained well it does make a difference. What is the point of blinding people
with science? To prove how clever the reporter or writer is?
My
own opinion is that you should share stories, share information. As children
we’d tell each other who we saw and what we did and what happened, it
was as if we were cameras bringing back a report to the BBC. No shrugging of
the shoulders and “it’s boring”, this is boring in itself. People live their
lives looking down at a screen and not up and alert to the world itself all
around us. People are not observant, Dirk
Bogarde as a child played games looking in shop windows and trying to
remember all the items, he did Photographic Interpretation in the War, later he
was a film star and a wonderful writer. I wish everybody was like that, looking
around and observing.
So
it is with words, they can be used to great or lesser effect, you just have to
use them in the right place. I could use a word beginning with an F, or C, or N
or W. Pick your own alphabet. But by using those words whatever they are in
your minds, not mine. I was thinking Food, Clothes, Nature and Writer, if you
were thinking any other words then you deserve to have the backs of your legs
slapped with wet lettuce a la Larry
Grayson. What kind of alphabet were you taught in your school? But I’ve
grabbed your attention now and made you smile and perhaps even think. Strong
words are great, such as concrete, but you have to use them in the right place
or they lose their power and are just boring. If a vicar suddenly used a word
beginning with X Y or Z, pick your own, then it would shock, and have
tremendous power, just as when the Pope used such words, if you can remember
that.
So
we all need to maximise the power of our words, and if we are sending a message
in a bottle we have to make sure it’s to the point. Remember too for 20 years I’ve
had a foreigner living with me, a Shanghai foreigner. So I know about
explaining words first hand, it’s not just an intellectual thing based on 20
years of listening to BBC radio 4 before my 30+ years of writing. So we all
need to use our words and make them count.
Speaking
is one thing and is more fun, but when we write we have to be more concise,
more Janet and John, so that it starts at 1 and goes to 10. With speech we can go backwards and forwards but
on paper our words must be more Logical, especially when Complaining. If you hunt
my website you’ll see advice on how to write a compliant letter should you ever
need to.
Well
I have to go and watch Beyond 100 Days now, which is one of my favourite
programs, it’s a news digest about UK/USA. The thing about this programme is
that everybody is willing (***&& Brexit to be over, it’s like a bad
heroin or is it heroine habit. But you replace the heroine with a hero and hope
another blond can fix it. Over in USA we see the blond there “fixing”
everything and you go down on your knees and ask God, when will you fix him.
And you can hear God say, In the Beginning was the Word.
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