I have a love-hate relationship with words. On the one hand, this very blog could not exist without them. I'd also have a great deal of troubling communicating with the rest of the world if they didn't exist. I love to read and reading would be next too impossible if there were no words on the page or screen. So, it's safe to say that I'm a word lover.
On the other hand, words infuriate the heck out of me. For one thing, almost any word possesses different subjective meanings to each person. For example, the platypus could mean something very general to one person or it could mean THE platypus -- something highly significant -- to the next person. If a simple word like "the" can exhibit layers of meaning, what does that say about words with more than one syllable?
Another issue I have with these infernal words is that I seem to have a great deal of difficulty typing them correctly. More often than not, when my brain sends the signal for the word "these" to my fingers, my fingers type the word "this". In such instances, the result might look like "...and I grabbed this pineapples from the mouth of the dragon". Of course, to even the casual reader, it should be obvious that "this" refers to a singular object, when, in fact, I'm referring to a plural noun.
Even worse, I run my spellchecker before posting any entry. My spellchecker does not mark the word "this" because it is spelled correctly. I also proof every entry before publishing it, but this often doesn't help either because, in the preview window, I see the word "this" and my mind reads the word "these". It is ONLY after publishing the entry that I read it on my blog to discover I've typed "this" instead of "these". So, I have to go back and re-edit the entry.
Words. Words. Words.
I love 'em and I hate 'em.
But I can't live without them.
Sigh.
On the other hand, words infuriate the heck out of me. For one thing, almost any word possesses different subjective meanings to each person. For example, the platypus could mean something very general to one person or it could mean THE platypus -- something highly significant -- to the next person. If a simple word like "the" can exhibit layers of meaning, what does that say about words with more than one syllable?
Another issue I have with these infernal words is that I seem to have a great deal of difficulty typing them correctly. More often than not, when my brain sends the signal for the word "these" to my fingers, my fingers type the word "this". In such instances, the result might look like "...and I grabbed this pineapples from the mouth of the dragon". Of course, to even the casual reader, it should be obvious that "this" refers to a singular object, when, in fact, I'm referring to a plural noun.
Even worse, I run my spellchecker before posting any entry. My spellchecker does not mark the word "this" because it is spelled correctly. I also proof every entry before publishing it, but this often doesn't help either because, in the preview window, I see the word "this" and my mind reads the word "these". It is ONLY after publishing the entry that I read it on my blog to discover I've typed "this" instead of "these". So, I have to go back and re-edit the entry.
Words. Words. Words.
I love 'em and I hate 'em.
But I can't live without them.
Sigh.
You love words because you're a writer. You became a writer because you write. You're a victim of what Alice W. Flaherty calls "the midnight disease." So am I.
ReplyDeleteSomeone once gave me this quote from Moliere: "Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for yourself, then you do it for a few friends, and then you do it for money."
Just a few thoughts from one word whore to another.
Keep up the good work.