What is that word?
The word is powerful. And I mean that sentence in a literal way.
The spoken word, the written word both carry tremendous capacity, influence, meaning, and might.
Think back to the early afternoon of January 6, 2021, when a large crowd of Trump supporters was cajoled into storming the Capitol of the United States. They were ready and willing, but all they needed was…
… the word.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, I Have a Dream, was spoken at another kind of march in Washington on August 28, 1963. Now, some 58 years later, it still holds the power for many to continue on their fight for freedom, for equality, for due regard in life.
In every kitchen in America, words have been spoken, time and again, in many shapes and sizes. Some have been filled with kindness and support, while others have been menacing and destructive. Many of those words have changed lives. We heard.
According to a recent study at the University of Arizona, the average American speaks 16,000 words a day. Most of those are pedestrian, I’d say. But think of the potential there, in all of our utterances, our realizations, our observations, our words.
Without an ounce of proof, I suspect that we are born with words of our own. Our task becomes to learn the words of those around us, to figure out how their words match ours. And then, we begin to speak the common language.
One tiny human with words of his own was T.S. Eliot, born on this date, September 26, 1888.
His full name was Thomas Stearns Eliot, and we know him as a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright. He was also a literary critic and editor. Eliot is considered to be one of the greatest of his time.
I first learned about him in my Freshman English class at Butler University. I believe it was American Literature 101. The professor was Dr. Shaughnessy, and I imagine he is no longer with us. Dr. Shaughnessy was an odd little man. He always wore the same tan-colored suit, wrinkled beyond compare. The wrinkles appeared on his shirts, too, often mustard yellow or a shade of white that could no longer be considered white. His hair was silvery gray, always mussed, and in need of a good shampoo and cut.
While it was illegal to smoke in any academic building on campus, Dr. Shaughnessy would step right outside our classroom door and fire up cigarette after cigarette throughout the hour-long class. His teeth and hands were yellowed from all that smoke, and somehow, he always managed to have a cup of hot coffee very near those teeth and hands. I suspect there was a thermos involved somewhere.
Most of all, I loved him. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher than he. Dr. Shaughnessy taught me about the power of words. He started our class with The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot, a thing I will never forget. It was a modernist masterpiece, by all measures. More than that, it showed me what words placed together have the ability to do. Eliot and Shaughnessy. Partners of the magic sword.
It isn’t easy to decide what Prufrock is about. It is a splintered poetic view of life and hard to pin down with one exact feeling. These notions include anxiety, desire, and disappointment. Yet, the best part is that the speaker’s internal life, his private world, is hidden from everyone. But we get to see it. It becomes alive for the reader. We are privy.
The way that Eliot worked his words is amazing.
I am thankful to the both of them for showing me how the power of the word can work.
And it does work, and play, and do. It can give, and it can take. That word.
As we go through the world, may we use our words wisely. And may we be wise enough to hear the words we need and to forget the rest.
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“The first rule of my speaking is: listen!”
― Larry King
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“Sometimes not speaking says more than all the words in the world.”
― Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love
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“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling
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Word.
