ESL Blogs

The Power of Words

It is still a mystery that how men kind initiated invention of words or sounds of words.  May be the men somehow came to know certain sounds to communicate their feelings, actions and emotions thereby later on the initial letters came into being which could be combined to represent those sounds.  The sounds whether spoken or written in combination of letters are ‘words’.

A word is, then a simple sound or a written sign of a sound, which men of any particular nation have agreed shall mean a certain thing, action feeling or thought. 

Now can such mere signs have some ‘power’?

Of course, it’s not the sign itself that has power, but the thing it stands for.  A foreign word may have no meaning for us, and have no power to put any impact upon us; but the words of similar meaning in our own language have the power to rouse in us the passions of fear, love hate anger, desire, shame, joy and sorrow.

For example, the word – ‘Fire!’ shouted in a crowded place like theater or cinema will put the whole audience into a panic.  The word ‘love’ will make the listener to float in to dreams.  The word ‘home’ can bring tears in the eyes of an exile. The word ‘freedom’ is still making thousands of the people to fight for it against the suppressers.  The word ‘death’ chills the bravest heart.  To call a man a ‘coward’ may make him blush with shame, or rouse him to blaze of indignant anger.

The power of words, then, lies in their associations and relations to the things they are brought up before our minds with, like sad or happy events.

The bloggers from us here in EC try to express their thoughts in words which appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. (Reference Lady Noor’s latest blog ‘After’.  Read it, you will easily understand what I mean).  This can be counted as literary style).  A real poet is a master of words.  They can convey their meanings in words which sing like music, no matter gloomy or happy, their words have power to bring the tears in the eyes or smile on the lips.

Words have life in themselves.  They are born, and as time passes they grow to full maturity, and even die with the passage of time.

It’s upon us, the blogger, to learn new words, use them, let them grow in our memories and then use them in a way that they become immortal in the world of literature.