Words. That’s how people communicate. With their mouths, their minds, their keyboards and even their pens. Mouthing the sounds or drawing the shapes of letters that together form words. These words, once written or spoken, carry meaning, so that people can express themselves.
It’s important that we understand these individual words. So that we can pursue the meanings of them when combined with other, different, words.
But hold on. Before even going that far; in the first place it’s so so important that we have words at all. Because if we don’t have words to describe things, what are we going to use? Rocks? No, of course not.
Rocks are good for sitting on and thinking, or kicking while you’re walking down the street having a good old think, or even smashing the skull of an enemy, real or imagined. But for communicating ideas? Nothing beats good old words. Not even rocks.
Sometimes though, people use words that we don’t understand. They might have a big vocabulary, or they might simply be speaking a different language.
NB: A different language is one that uses weird words in strange ways to convey ideas that may be familiar to you, but you’ll never be sure. In this case the words are a barrier.
TIP: If someone puts a whole bunch of sounds together using their mouth and you have no idea what they’re saying, you might be listening to a different language.
However, on the flip side, if someone says “now you’re speaking my language” there’s a good chance they want to make a business deal (or have sex) with you. That’s a good rule of thumb. So feel free to use it, that’s what thumbrules are for.
In conclusion, words are really important, so use them wisely. We have a finite amount of words, but an unlimited amount of opportunity to use them in our life. However, that doesn’t mean we should use them carelessly: nope.
Quite the opposite.
