What are "words" for?
How do we mean anything?
The painting, by Roy Lichtenstein, is an example of onomatapoieu [ON - oh - ma - toe - POY - oo]
The Greek word means “to make a name;” that is, a create a word that imitates the sound of what you’re describing or experiencing…
“WHAM” is the onomatopoieic word in the painting, intended to imitate the sound of an explosion
The number of such words, in any language, are limited only by spelling & imagination; any of us can list hundreds (though the spellings & pronunciation in other languages are often surprising)
(In English, for example, the spelling for the sound I make striking a door is “KNOCK;” in German, the spelling for the same sound is “KLOPF”)
The first conclusion to draw that we can create words to represent experience for ourselves and our listeners
The next point is that all words are created, even though not all of them are onomatapoieic words
All language consists of words, used according to a variety of rules; but what do we create the words themselves for?
The common answer is words aim to communicate; that is, to convey meaning between oneself & others
I’ve always been struck by an insight of British playwright Harold Pinter [1930-2008]: “Speaking…is a continual evasion,” a “desperate attempt… to keep ourselves to ourselves.”
Pinter was talking not only about speech in the course of dramatic action in a play, but also claiming that language generally aims to present a picture rather than aiming for accuracy or truth
I want to generalize Pinter’s point: words are ways of picturing
We use words to create pictures of what we mean; a “picture” is a way of seeing
(The word “idea” comes from the Greek for the “look” or appearance of a thing)
So words are, or convey, ideas—which is to say also thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc.
The important point is that words—like feelings—come before what it is we want to say
Thus words are the source of experience, not a result; words are what give shape to experience, and thus to what we call the “world around us;” that world is not in fact “around” us—in the sense of “outside”—but created by the words we use
The words we use—and listen to—form the world in which we live and act
This quality of language offers an insight into the “polarization” now used to describe U.S. political life: the “worlds” created by the choice of words within groups may really have little connection with one another…
Obviously it’s not enough simply to talk—or listen—to one another to alter this contrast—or conflict; to speak another group’s language is to enter their world
(This fact explains the spread—and the appeal—of “conspiracies,” etc.)
There’s no way out of this circle, but often enough we agree to share a language: it happens when we agree to create a realm together, for example when I speak—and even more—listen to my children, or to my students, and so on…
I like the bullet point format. It has an urgent quality, like notification or instruction. And I heartily agree that to deploy words for the effect of shared meaning, beyond even the accepted understanding of the “meaning” of a word, within clans, nationalities, or any subgroup, shows that we make up new meanings for existing words at our convenience.