This is the image I have when I think of “words”. I see clouds of concepts levitating mid-air, and words would lasso several of them to loop them together. The result is something like the figure of a kid holding several helium balloons. Somehow I am picturing the child from Dreamworks. As children are whimsical, words have a malleable aspect, sometimes dropping a lasso, sometimes looping in a different cloud.
There is something that is lost in Newspeak. There is something palpable when using the word “epiphany” over “discovery” or “realization”. Like at the batting cage you hit that one effortless swing which you know hit the sweet spot just from the gong alone. Yes, that sweet feeling of hitting the sweet spot. Not just any realization, but one that you feel as though you had a brief connection with a figure from a higher dimension. Epiphany.
I have a mental registrar. When I come across something new I try to subject it to the registry process consciously in due time, or subconsciously through repeated usage. I vividly remember how I got to embrace the stinky fruit. I hated durian at first. But one day, after many commutes back from work through the fruit market, my nose had picked up “durian”. I decided to give a try again. So I got a whole durian for myself, and solemnly unzipped the air-sealed package. I put all ten thousand taste buds against the fruit. I took a deep breath to aerate the insides of my mouth. And just like that I registered “durian”. It was no longer a fruit that resembles “mango”, but has a more “gaseous” odor. It was “durian”. Like that, “durian” became a happy child with a bouquet of balloons representing the sensation of creaminess and sweetness. I assume that’s what went behind all registered words in my vocabulary.
Does fish not exist? In the taxonomical sense I am indifferent. That’s the thing about new generations. They don’t have prior preconceptions that they have to somehow lift out to make place for new concepts. Your world would turn upside down if you have spent 40 years of your life knowing Earth is flat but you have to live the remainder believing the opposite. I had no “taxonomical fish” to lift out. I only had “fish”. “Taxonomical fish” was never a cloud my registrar lassoed. I will prefer “fish” over “water animals” anytime.
I wonder if Shakespeare felt the tinge of omnipotence that David Starr Jordan indulged in. It is said that he invented over one thousand words. Placing concepts of the intangible dimension in the grids of our perceptible plane, exerting his linguistic presence to fellow humanity, creating ripples in the web, impacting English users, mattering.
Infergel is an alien linguist species. They roam space purely for their intellectual pleasure visiting inhabited planets. A unique trait of theirs is that they are able to perceive clouds of concepts visually. I try to imagine which concepts of the humankind and Earth Infergels would connect together to crystalize into words. This could yield interesting results. Concepts that we thought couldn’t be further away from each other could actually be like the two sides of the same coin and be looped into the same word. That’s how I feel when I see the word “awe”. The mixed feeling of fear and wonder. At times fear or wonder alone doesn’t cut it and the phrase “mixture of fear and wonder intertwined” is unwieldy. “Awe” puts the concept on perceptible planes. Then, are we sure the concept existed before the inception of its physical counterpart? It could be like the chicken or egg debate, but I guess if other speakers of the language could not understand the association, the word would not have stuck around.
I think about “love”. I think about the concepts it is representing. During the read an idea have sprouted within me that the meaning I attribute to love, and the concepts it alludes to could be extended. Or should be extended? I think love is so closely tied to human’s existential question that it could be the flip side of the same coin where the other side is the fear of death and the unknown. Perhaps “love” carries, or could carry, the connotation of “aiding the bearing of the existential burden”, “alleviating the fear of death”, “delusional, optimistic, self-affirmations of bigger scope of impact”. Perhaps there is a reverential solemnness involved in the saying of “I love you”. Or even, in “I love cake”. That the sensation of electricity leavens the stellar weight of cosmos. Maybe as a noun it could mean the existential burden or fear or death itself? “As she sailed further away from shore until arriving at a speckless panorama, a shivering sensation of love bolted down her spine.” Oh my god, did I accidentally come to understand what George Orwell was going for? War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. … Fear is Wonder? … Fear is Love?
Written from scratch by Meston Ecoa
No assistance was received from any form of Artificial Intelligence.
No assistance was received from any grammar or vocabulary enhancing software.
Source
• Book cover photo: shot myself
• Boy with balloon photo: screenshot from Dreamworks intro
• Durian photo: Photo by Jim Teo on Unsplash
• Shakespeare photo: Pixabay
• Exerpt from 1984 photo: shot myself
