Words are like... 3

[tgreer]

The recent conversation about what words MEAN in another thread made me clarify my thoughts about what words ARE.

In this thread, I don't want to re-hash that, but want instead a collection of thoughts about what words are like, or quotes from writers who gave their thoughts on the matter.

For me, words are like "people". They are born, grow through unique experiences, and die. Each has a personality, and is an individual.

This passage (about PEOPLE, not WORDS) from Neal Stephenson's "The System of the World", for me could equally well describe people or words:

"I was afraid you might have grown weary of slave-tales. I fear they are repetitious. 'I was siezed by raiders from the next village...traded to the tribe across the river...marched to the edge of the great water, marked with a hot iron, put aboard ship, dragged off of it half dead, now I chop sugar cane.'"

"All human stories are in some sense repetitious, if you boil them down so far. Yet people fall in love."

"What?"

"They fall in love, Dappa. With a particular man or woman, and no one else. Or a woman will have a baby, and love that baby forever...no matter how similar its tale might seem to those of other babies."

"You are saying", Dappa said, "that we make connections with other souls, despite the samenes--"

"There is no sameness. If you looked down upon the world from above, like an albatross, you might phant'sy there was some sameness among the people crowding the land below you. But we are not albatrosses, we see the world from ground level, from within our own bodies, through our own eyes, each with our own frame of references, which changes as we move about, and as others move about us. This sameness is a conceit of yours, an author's hobgoblin, something you fret about in your hammock late at night."

"In truth, I have my own cabin, and do my fretting in a bed nowadays."

Please don't respond with a DEBATE about this (we've already done that in another thread). Respond with a "Words are like...[something]", with a reference or quote to illustrate.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

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[TheRambler]

My words are like stars that never set."

Chief Seattle

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion on our fathers for centuries untold, and which, to us, looks eternal, may change. Today it is fair, tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like stars that never set. What Seattle says, the great chief, Washington, can rely upon, with as much certainty as our paleface brothers can rely upon the return of the seasons.

 

[SantaMufasa]

I believe I would like to have known Chief Seattle. He would have my vote.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[SantaMufasa]

...Too bad that so many others' words are like smoke...the speaker says the words, then the words are gone, unable to be believed or relied upon any longer than their sound exits.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[TheRambler]

"Words Are Like Tears" Triphazard

Words are like tears.
One by one they
melt away the sadness,
soften the crust of suffering.

Words are like tears.
After one comes another,
always, like drops of rain
until the pain is washed away.​

 

[TheRambler]

"To me words are like notes of music." William Sternman

And I love words. I love all the things you can do with them. To me words are like notes of music. You can run them up in simple scales. You can arrange them into catchy tunes. You can transform them into operas that plumb the depths of the human heart, or into symphonies that resonate with the awe of the universe. You can reach out--across thousands of miles or thousands of years--and touch another human being so that his or her life is never quite the same again.

Nor yours.

Words are magical. I love being a magician.

 

[tsdragon]

That's a beautiful quote! Thanks!

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[TheRambler]

Thanks to you, too bad I didn't write it, although I thought about it after reading your post. Later when I had the time I searched the web to see if someone had similar ideas, and found the quote I posted.

After all, "Music is the language of the spirit." Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931).