Explorations In Reading, Writing, and Publishing
If you’re new to this blog, you might want to read this post first…
Oh, my, I hope I didn’t lose any readers because the title of this post ends with a preposition…
It’s really ok to do it–honest :-)
Words are slippery critters, for readers, writers, and publishers.
Words are metaphysical entities, even if they point to non-metaphysical things.
Words can seem to appear on the screen or page but they live in our minds and hearts.
My absolutely favorite word is “Word” :-)
So where do they come from?
If, in fact, they are metaphysical, they live in a non-physical realm. (Was that a too obvious sentence?)
Some folks may be cringing at my use of the word metaphysical but I should point out that there are many things besides souls, epic emotions, dreams, prayers, and words that are well accepted as existing though they’re not physical; like gravity, magnetism, numbers, and the whole field of mathematics.
So, if words come from and actually exist in a non-physical realm, what are these things I’m typing into this blog post?
These things, like this very word << are the physical representations of Real Words. Perhaps an example will help the explanation:
“Jack took his time thinking over Joyce’s proposition. If he agreed, his life would change, irrevocably–jumping off a nine-story building had its risks. If he didn’t agree, Joyce would leave him–again, a choice with risks…“
What happened in your mind as you were reading that? What did you see? Did you feel anything about Jack or Joyce?
Every word-symbol in that example pointed to Real Words in your mind. The meaning of the word-symbols on the screen and the meaning of the Real Words in your mind are different. In fact, the word-symbols have no meaning until your mind assigns meaning to them…
Words are so slippery that humanity has a thriving industry of creating dictionaries–full of complicated word-symbols–just so we humans can have a modicum of agreement on what Real Words mean–yet, the Real Words keep changing on us–evolving and even cozying up with each other to breed new words…
So, there’s my theory (truncated, to be sure) of where words come from.
What do you think?
Oh, I know, I haven’t, yet, clearly described that metaphysical realm where words hang out but I will; oh, yes, I will :-)
Come on, I dare ya–what do you think about words as metaphysical entities???
Read The Other Posts In This Series
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Words represent ideas. Ideas are extremely mutable, so it follows that words can not remain the same in meaning given time, popularity and the social collective of reality. So, I agree.
Also, the English language is the slipperiest of them all. Is this because we are progressive in thought???
Well, C. M., I talk with folks from other countries in my duties on Book Island in Second Life and, even though they have their native language they seem to like talking in English. One woman, from Germany, says she hates writing in German…
Many people have said English is a rich language (richness leading to being “slippery”) and I suppose “progressive” could be used to express thought done in English yet many literary folk say Arabic and Persian are richer…
I once read somewhere: If you want to give directions, say it in German. If you want to describe a feeling, say it in French. If you want to describe how something looks, say it in English.
I suppose, if the financial situation keeps going like it is, we should all learn Chinese. Do-Whop.
Great advice, C. M. :-)
I think your theory is great. I can’t wait to hear where it is these words exist, I mean hang out.
Tomorrow’s post will be the beginning of an attempted explanation :-)
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Words are powerful. Are they metaphysical? That is an interesting theory. I think that words have the power to metaphysical. Mmmh food for thought.
Great to see you here, Kim :-)
Thanks for commenting …
Para mi las palabras nacen en nuestro pensamiento, nosotros pensamos con palabras, las palabras nos permiten crear conocimientos nuevos y pertenecen a la fonética y fonología.
Margarita,
I had to use Google translate to read you comment—I hope it got the meaning you intended???
“For me the words are born in our thinking, we think with words, words allow us to create new knowledge and belong to the phonetics and phonology.”
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