A week or so ago I was walking with my loving other along the southern banks of the Thames. At a specific passage there were a lot of street performers; bronze-painted, gold-painted, and even lizard-painted (?). However there was one specific performer, who, sadly, attracted more of my pity than my attention; through a plastic ‘transport-cage’ for dogs, this man had stuck his head, painted like a Dalmatian with floppy ears, while hiding his body underneath the table where the cage was posed. To
‘add some spice’ he had attached a wagging tail to the back of the ‘canine container’, thus spending his days barking through the small opening of the cage to make a living for himself.
This being a situation which could obviously not go un-commented by my standards, I turn to my boyfriend and say (in French):
That’s what I call desperation (using the very same word in French).Whereby he says to me (also in French):
It’s not desperation it’s désespoir
And then he smiles and says:
…but it’s no surprise you don’t know that word, you don’t ever use those kinds of words (referring to what I would entitle ‘negative vocabulary’)
All of this goes back to a discussion we had earlier that day where he confessed that words such as enthusiastic or practical had so far been words ‘of mine’ to invade his active vocabulary.
This simple fact makes me smile for a number of reasons:
One, there is truth to the Swedish saying: ‘Man blir som man umgås’ equivalent to you become like the people you spend your time with.
Two… I really don’t use a lot of negatively ringing words. I tend to go with possible, energy, solution, enthusiasm, belief, goodness, positivity. Still I don’t think I come across as naïve, I am a realist, but an optimistic one.
Three… The vocabulary you use in many ways reflects your world view. If you are positive you will perhaps believe in helpful people, in sincere caring and in true friends. This of course doesn’t mean that you are not careful or aware of risk, but rather that you see the glass half full and not half empty.
If you, on the other hand, are a negative person, maybe you use words such as horrible, idiot or problem a lot, and you tend to use your words to draw up disastrous scenarios, full of betrayal, forgetfulness and unaccommodating attitudes.
So the words paint your world. In what color? It’s up to you. Language and attitude is ultimately merely a self-fulfilling prophesy. What you believe is what you create. Similarly your perspective guides your choices and helps you rebuild the verbal and concrete world wherein you feel comfortable, be it a dark or a light one.
Your words are used to describe what you see, and so accordingly if your concept world is positive, the verbal structures describing it are much along the same lines and vice versa.
Hence your vocabulary use greatly mirrors your practical world perspective, it does not shape your actions, your attitude and belief does, but it describes them. The words you use in that sense become a reflection of who you are.
Of course, a lot comes into language; intonation, gestures and meaningful gazes. But only from the actual words used, irrespective of what accompanies them, a lot could be told. So I, who am verbally positive…am I inevitably practically optimistic?
What words do you use?
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