Weight Of Words

During English class many years ago, a certain frustrated student stood up unexpectedly and asked loudly "Why do we need to learn all this Grammar stuff for?" It was a valid question even though the rest of the class laughed since they found, as I did, that the question, which did become an ensuing debate topic, answered itself. Words and their arrangement when spoken or written, do matter. Recently, a certain word that a group came up with to identify their cause, upset a great many people who took offense at its connotation. They felt that the term used was not only  misleading but incorrect. What interested me is that the word took on, in the media, far more importance than the outcome of the group's findings themselves. The word constituted a very heavy weight for the entire country who struggled with what its true meaning is. The controversy became enormous nationally and globally, in fact, over this one word. Other words to do with gender, for example, have taken on powerful forces in their use or non-use. Politically insensitive terminology often becomes the cause of violence. In some places accents and inflections and coined words and so on, denote one's social standing or employment opportunity or educational history. The way we use words is often an indication of how we are judged socially. The scope of one's vocabulary indicates, amongst most academics, the level of intelligence and wisdom in a colleague. Poets use words as artists use paint. Novelists using their words take us to places and into people we meet in their pages and go where we cannot. Writers of factual material choose terms with precision so to make their presentations more readily comprehensive and comprehending. All of us use words that flatter, offend, comfort, demand, question, and a host of other feelings. We do it to elicit certain reactions by others. We all use words sometimes, we wish we hadn't and want to "take back". But words are not take-back-able. No amount of apology can wipe out a word spoken. It's not possible to strike a double line through words you have spoken. The less known or lost languages that are being given new life, are to be honoured. To argue an adage, words are so much more elusive than actions, and they DO speak louder. The way we put words together, or usage as it is called in some quarters, tells something about ourselves and our backgrounds. When we are born, our first words are what we hear and attempt to parrot. We learn, when infants, from the basic senses of hearing and seeing. The two fit together. We put the words together as we listen, repeat and see the reactions to those words. Undeniably, our ways of speaking stem from our beginnings. These beginnings are crucial.When we are school age, we take this home learning with us and build on it. Lessons during our basic twelve grades at school, show us other words used by writers and learned folk in various subjects taught, who set out to enhance our word history. Language, both home and schooled, is vital to our individualistic place in the world. It should never be denied or suppressed or ridiculed. It is what and who we are. That is, in  every society, "why we need to learn all this Grammar stuff for".