The Power Of Words

Sticks and stones may break my bones (but
words will never hurt me).

It’s been a while since I’ve attempted a blog of any kind and that’s because events over the past few months have just clouded my thoughts, as much as I have wanted to express myself in the written form I just haven’t, until now, been able to understand them let alone construct them into readable sentences.

Having said that, if none of what I am about to write makes any sense whatsoever then let’s just say that the above is my disclaimer.

You may be wondering why I have decided to open the blog with that famous idiom, one that you may have uttered as a child in the playground, we should all know it, and it basically means we should be above criticism because at the end of the day words are only....well, words.

Oh dear. Only words!

Well, if I am the writer that I fancy myself as then I obviously disagree with that idiom, Writers, Authors, Journalists, Wordsmiths, Editors, Linguistic and Language lovers unite and repeat the following with me: “how dare it suggest that words should not hurt us.”

Oh words can be very, very, very powerful indeed. I know this. I respect this.

And to be honest, I only fully realised this today, after two failed attempts at Journalism, I fully understand the power of words. I want you to understand too.

I have been at the receiving end of words and I have been the giver of words, harsh words, absurd words, angry words, demeaning words, words that will make you cry, words that will make you want to hit me, words that will make you not want to talk to me again in your lifetime, words that will have you thinking "I never really knew that person" , words that will have you thinking “how the fuck did I get here.”

The events that I mentioned at the start were all about words, when you break it down it was all just words but powerful and potent words nonetheless.

How could words get me into so much trouble if words cannot, like the idiom suggest, hurt us, well, they hurt me so much.

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I sit here and think about a person saying they were ‘terrified.’ I have thought about what terrified means over the days that have passed since that word was said.

Refraining from looking at a dictionary I believe the word terrified is to begin with a powerful word, it means that you are in shock, you are in disarray, that you are very scared and that you are in an almost trauma like state.

Now I know it’s not for me to judge how another was thinking but I believe that person, who is good with words, has chosen the word ‘terrified’ carefully as they know the weight behind the word. When I talk about weight I want you to think about how heavy or how light a word can be - how much impact it can have.

On this particular occasion, I did not think that person was good with the word they chose because to me it was an exaggerated word that never reflected how they felt but reflected how they wanted others to believe they felt.

I believe this because what I went through to get to the stage where I was listening to this person say their words was truly terrifying and I believe that person chose the wrong word.

Upset, sad, scared or annoyed, all those words would have summed up how the person was feeling because in my eyes you cannot be in a state of terror and continue ones daily work, not a chance.

But the reason the words I mentioned were not used were because those words just wouldn’t have done the job under the circumstances.

Let me tell you now not of the meaning of the word terrified but of my experience with feeling that emotion.

Terrified is when you are continuously woken up during the night with banging, screaming, shouting, kicking on steel doors, surrounded by scary individuals, terrified is when you are fasting for three days because you are scared of what happened the last time may happen again, terrified is when you are sure there is something deadly sinister going on with your heart beat, terrified is when you are packed into a van physically shaking because you fear what is going to happen next, terrified is when you hand over a shit stained t-shirt completely lost of self-worth, terrified is when you walk into a room half naked with fourteen scumbags, terrified is when you have to sit with those people and get torn apart by words of abuse and threats of physical violence.

I believe that is terrified.

But there are no right or wrong words, just circumstance, there are no threats or promises, just the individual who interprets them to be so.

Ironic then, that the so-called Journalist, even though I haven’t written anything, none of my work has been published, I haven’t done shit basically – was done by words, of his own and the words of others.

Just don’t tell me that words can’t hurt a person, look at David Beckham, simple taunts from football fans were enough to get him roused and angry, millionaire or not, words on a girls Facebook were enough to get a teenage girl imprisoned and if you want to take the example further back in time then Google ‘Hector McDonald’, read his story, an Army general who was accused of being homosexual in a newspaper, a man who killed others in battle and fought valiantly in many wars – killed himself because of words printed in a newspaper.

Words!


For centuries we have been fighting over words, killing over words, screaming over words, debating over words, going to war over words, harassing over words.


Words, only words!

Man, the truth is this:

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Words may not break our bones, but they will break our hearts, our soul, our mind.