Meaning of a word Essay

Language is the subject. It is the pen puddle with which Ive managed to keep the wolf from the door, and in diaries, my sanity. In breach of this, I consider the pen explicate inferior to the spoken, and oermuch of the frustration see by novelists is the cognizantness that whatever we manage to capture in scour the most transcendent passages falls off the beaten track(predicate) short of the richness of life. discourse achieves its power in the dynamics of a fleeting moment of sight, travel, belief and touch.-excerpt taken from Gloria Naylors The Meanings of a Word.WordsThe first clip of this excerpt can have several interpretations, depending on which synonym of the forge language you choose to use of goods and services. It could be her theme, her topic, her focus, the bea that is under discussion. Language, for her, is the subject, the one she has utilize to support herself, the form she has employed to preserve her sanity. In the first break out of her third se ntence, Naylor states that she considers the pen ledger inferior to the spoken in spite of her second sentence it is second rate, of lesser importance than the lyric really vocalized.For her, written linguistic process do not hold as much power as those that are spoken she, and novelists akin her, are aware that charge the most descriptive and moving of passages do not to the full capture a fleeting moment of sight, sound, smell and touch the counselling dialogue does. Naylor is of the opinion that one simple gesture, scene, scent or sound achieves what a thousand rowing describing them cannot, and this is frustrating to her, hence, her statement, I consider the written word inferior to the spoken.I disagree with this idea and grapple that the written word is superior to the spoken.There is a phrase that says that the pen is mightier than the sword. Taken in literal name, this phrase is a strong-arm impossibility. Obviously, he who wields the bigger, stronger sword woul d triumph over he who brings a thin pen to the fight, unless by some slim chance it was some appearance of new,unbreakable pen. What, then, is the center of this saying? The answer lies not in canvass the physical appearances of these two objects, but in considering what they can do. A sword, when apply by a master of the blade, can kill maybe a dozen people.A pen can kill millions. It can castigate entire cities to death. In 1945, documents authorizing the use of the atomic bomb on japan did sightly that with the signatures of the cabinet and the President of the United States, Hiroshima and Nagasakis fates were sealed. Consider also, that charm a sword may be utilise to threaten a village or two, using a pen can learn entire countries free, and decide the future of timess to come. The independence of British colonies, such as Zambia in 1964, was finalized by a stroke of a pen at the bottom of the declaration.Think about it and you realize something its not the pen thats mightier than the sword. It is merely an instrument that is used to achieve an end. It is the words that are written using the pen which hold the power it is the words on that document or bill or law or word that are mightier than the sword.I was jarred and shocked by the style, the clear, clean, sweeping sentences. Why did he write like that? And how did one write like that? I depicted the man as a raging demon, slashing with his pen, consumed with hateI stood up trying to realize what reality lay behind the substance of his wordsthis man was fighting, fighting with wordsusing words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. Could words be weapons? Well, yes, for here they were.-excerpt taken from Richard Wrights The Library cardThe in a higher place excerpt comes from a point in Wrights The Library board where the main character reacts strongly to a news he has just read. It is clear that the directly, cutting style of writing has affected him, and he hungers to iss ue why and how someone could write like that. This leads him to pondering the hidden meaning behind the words, and the style of writing is such that he likens the author of the book to a demon, slashing with his pen. In fact, he comes to the conclusion that words can be used as weapons and thissupports the argument that written word is superior to the spoken. Like Mencken in The Library Card, we can use written words in the said(prenominal) steering. They can be used to challenge set ways of thinking and attack prejudices and injustices without the violence of a war or the pettiness of a verbal argument. Using written words, arguments become free of emotional entanglements and are reduced to their simplest, most direct forms.The spoken words that Naylor prefers would not be able to attain the same effect that a signed document would. A verbal placement about an important matter, such as Independence of a country, would neer hold up to the scrutiny of a legal proceeding. It would be far too easy for either party to change the wording of their verbal agreement ever so slightly to tip the scales in their upgrade or change the words all together, and in doing so, change the terms completely. There would be no way to prove that the agreement even took place.The spoken word or word of mouth is an unreliable way to learn about historical events. Stories that are passed down from generation to generation stand a high risk of being distorted over time, and with so many an(prenominal) storytellers, the original version leave behind be mazed within three or four generations. This is another way that the written word is superior to the spoken written documentation ensures that the facts and details will always be there when we need them, exact and unchanged.With so many variations and dialects of the English Language, it is almost impossible to find a daily word that was not been abbreviated or corrupted into slang. If it is not one or the other, then the context it is used in gives it a completely antithetic meaning anyway. Take the word nigger for example. Naylor shows us that depending on the words it is used with in speech, the word takes on multiple implications, thus change magnitude the chance of mistaking its meaning. Written words are clear cut, oddly if written clearly, correctly and succinctly.Words hold power over us all. While the spoken form does hold sway over all living being, words used in speech are like the beginnings of a thought andit is the written form that ultimately completes the idea.