Words
Words can be slippery things.
In a world where there is more and more content - more and more words - it may be important, and if not, certainly beneficial, to develop a refined understanding of what words are, what they are not, what they are capable of, and what can happen when they are misused.
Words as Symbols
Words function as symbols, and they are not the things that they are symbolic of.
That is a tongue-brain twister. Let us try again: words "point to" the things they describe. They are not the things they describe.
There are some sayings, proverbs, and anecdotes that attempt to convey this:
"The Map is not the territory"
"I was pointing at the Moon; you were looking at my finger."
Mundane vs Intense
In standard, mundane interactions where everybody is "going along to get along", understanding the slippery-ness of words is not a big deal.
"That is not really a tree - it's more like a large bush."
In an intense interaction, the slippery-ness of words can be increasingly problematic.
"You said the flight was leaving at 7 o'clock. I thought you meant PM, not AM!"
Straightforward Words
Some words tend to generally be more straightforward than others - a lot of times, these are words that describe physical things that we can see and touch:
- Apple
- In reference to a physical apple
- Train
- In reference to a train vehicle
- Jupiter
- In reference to the planet Jupiter
Even with these words, however, we can find ourselves occasionally running into problems:
- Apple
- wWat about those little sour apple-like things that nobody eats - are those still apples?
- When an apple tree is starting to grow apples, at what point is the apple growing from the branch an apple vs something considered at the pre-apple stage? An apple blossom?
- Train
- Are there train-like vehicles?
- Some urban centers feature "Streetcars" which seem very train-like in nature
- Jupiter
- You can hardly see Jupiter with the naked eye, and even when you can, how many people know Jupiter when they see it?
Blurry Words
Aside from straightforward words, some words start to get blurry.
Words that describe general or relational measurements tend to be a bit more problematic.
- When does a pond become a lake?
- At what point does a hill become a mountain?
- When does a stream become a river?
- At what point is someone 'tall'?
Abstract Words
Even more challenging to get a hold of are those words that do not describe anything you can readily see with the physical eye.
The best analogy we can make is to point to something that indicates the presence of something else: the same way we do not see the wind, but we can see things moving that suggest the presence of wind.
Often, these tough-to-grasp things are those that are said to represent the subjective, emotional or intuitive:
- Love
- Freedom
- Success
- Justice
- Truth
What can we really do with these beautiful enigmas?