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Words Have Unimaginable Power to Help, Dehumanize or Destroy
The language we use and the words we select to characterize others should be of great concern to all of us.
Words have the power to inspire, to offer hope where there seems to be little, to raise us up, or to inflict incredible pain; all words await our use. When we make decisions about words and our language, there may be an element of emotional turmoil, an altruistic component, or one where we wish to vanquish an “enemy” we perceive.
Unfortunately, too many choose to use words unwisely, and once released, they are like the genie that can never be put back into the bottle. While dabbling in Japanese, I learned how to make a negative comment about someone in the language. But even this word can carry a variety of meanings.
I began to appreciate the wonder of words and how they were extraordinarily adept at providing inordinate knowledge with a great economy of expression. My first experience was when I satisfied my curiosity to study Japanese with a wonderful program (Power Japanese) that is no longer available, or, if you can find it, operating systems will no longer recognize it, and the latest version doesn’t measure up to the former. A word to the publisher: Get the original, correct the code, and offer the original program again. You had a winner.
